She goes on: "Our blacks eat their tribal or family totems, but should they have an individual totem called yunbeai, that they never eat . . . . Old Hippi says" [as to the question whether Byamee is borrowed from the whites] "if blacks learned of Byamee from the whites, how is it that the young men of the tribe know least of him, though he says that he can show trees and stones which Byamee changed into those forms,—Byamee's track in stone, &c. Did white people teach them that? he indignantly asks . . . ." [He then adduces proof of his tribe's respect, in old times, for female chastity.]
Byamee "is never spoken of as yowee, or 'good spirit'; nor as wundah, or 'bad spirit'—never in any sort of way as others are spoken of, except as a wirreenun, but then always as 'the greatest of all.'"
On this showing Byamee is not a spirit, but, in Mr. Matthew Arnold's phrase, "a magnified non-natural man," unborn and undying. His sky camp is his original home; he visits earth as a culture-hero and lawgiver, has mortal wives, and appoints a subordinate being, Gayandy, to superintend the Mysteries. For misconduct Gayandy is cashiered, the effect which his Voice was intended to produce was imitated by bull-roarers. These were first of stone, but now are of wood.
The venerable Hippi's logic as to the borrowing theory notes a new point. The young tribesmen who have seen most of whites, know least of Byamee. Perhaps, as they may often have heard the name of God, in imprecations or from the clergy, that name has superseded Byamee's; but this is only my conjecture.
It will be urged that Hippi spoke of stone churinga in answer to leading questions. Perhaps if people look out for those stones they may discover them, as palæolithic weapons are being discovered in South Africa. (See J. A. I., Feb.-May, 1899, pp. 258-274.) At all events, there can be no harm in looking about. The stone churinga are not used as bull-roarers by the Arunta, and many of them seem ill-adapted for that purpose. It is as likely that they were made in imitation of the wooden articles as vice versa.
The problem is: Was Byamee prior in evolution to his subordinate Gayandy (Daramulun among Kamilaroi and Wiraijuri), was Mungan-ngaur prior to Tundun, and so in other cases? Or did theology begin with this noisy bugbear (the Arunta Twanyikira,
