of providing food for it is derided by the intelligent old aborigines, as 'white fellow's gammon.'
It is a remarkable coincidence with the superstition of the lower orders in Europe, that the aborigines believe every adult has a wraith, or likeness of himself, which is not visible to anyone but himself, and visible to him only before his premature death. If he is to die from the bite of a snake, he sees his wraith in the sun; but in this case it appears in the form of an emu. If, in the evening, after sunset, a person walking with a friend sees his own likeness—'muuruup man,' and, if a woman, 'muuruup yeman,'—the friend says, 'Something will happen to you, as you have seen your wraith.' This so preys on the mind of the individual that he falls into low spirits, which he tries to relieve by recklessness and carelessness in battle.
After the disposal of the body of a good person, its shade walks about for three days; and, although it appears to people, it holds no communication with them. Should it be seen and named by anyone during these three days, it instantly disappears. At the expiry of three days it goes off to a beautiful country above the clouds, abounding with kangaroo and other game, where life will be enjoyed for ever. Friends will meet and recognize each other there; but there will be no marrying, as the bodies have been left on earth. Children under four or five years of age have no souls and no future life. The shades of the wicked wander miserably about the earth for one year after death, frightening people, and then descend to Ummekulleen, never to return. There was a belief current among the aborigines, that the first white men seen by them were the embodied spirits or shades of deceased friends. Whether this belief originated with the tribes of Port Phillip, or was transmitted from the Sydney district, it is now impossible to ascertain; but there is no doubt that it did exist among the aborigines of Victoria at the time of its first occupation by the white man.
Some of the ideas described above may possibly have originated with the white man, and been transmitted from Sydney by one tribe to another.
On the sea coast, opposite Deen Maar—now, unfortunately, called Julia Percy Island—there is a haunted cave called Tarn wirring, 'road of the spirits,' which, the natives say, forms a passage between the mainland and the island, When anyone dies in the neighbourhood, the body is wrapped in grass and buried; and if, afterwards, grass is found at the mouth of the cave, it is proof that a good spirit, called Puit puit chepetch, has removed the body and everything belonging to it through the cave to the island, and has conveyed its spirit to the clouds;
