The Euahlayi Tribe; a study of aboriginal life in Australia by K. Langloh (Katie Langloh) Parker
page 22 of 201 (10%)
page 22 of 201 (10%)
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they once held the northern faith, and have almost emerged from it.
Without further information about intermediate tribes and their ideas on these matters, the question cannot be answered. We are also without data as to whether the nearly extinct southern coastal tribes evolved the All Father belief, and transmitted it to the Euahlayi, to some Queensland tribe, with their Mulkari, and even to the Kaitish, or whether the faith has been independently developed among the tribes with no matrimonial classes and the others. Conjecture is at present useless. In one respect a discovery of Mrs. Parker's is unfavourable to my theories. In THE SECRET OF THE TOTEM have shown that, when the names of the phratry divisions of the tribes can be interpreted, they prove to be names of animals, and I have shown how this may have come to be the case. But among the Euahlayi the phratry names mean 'light blood' and 'dark blood.' This, PRIMA FACIE, seems to favour the theory of the Rev. Mr. Mathews, in his EAGLE HAWK AND CROW, that two peoples, lighter and darker, after an age of war, made CONNUBIUM and marriage treaty, whence came the phratries. The same author might urge, if he pleased, that Eagle Hawk (about the colour of the peregrine) was chosen to represent 'light,' and Crow to represent 'dark'; while the phratry animals, White and Black Cockatoo, were selected, elsewhere, to represent the same contrast. But we need more information as to the meanings of other phratry names which have defied translation. In many other things, as in the account of the YUNBEAI of the Euahlayi, their mode of removing the tabu on the totem in food, their magic, their 'multiplex totems,' their methods of hunting, their initiatory ceremonies, their highly moral lullabies, and the whole of their kindly life, Mrs. Parker's book appears to deserve a welcome from the few who |
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