These beliefs in the existence of the human spirit after death are scattered over a great extent of the eastern half of the continent, and it is not unreasonable to conclude that they are held by the intervening tribes. It is now possible to advance another stage, and to adduce other facts which will go to show that the further beliefs arising out of these are a logical sequence from them. Collins in his account of the beliefs of the Port Jackson tribes, states that some thought that, after death, they went either on or beyond the great water, but by far the greater number signified that they went to the clouds.[1]
The Kulin say that the Murup goes either direct to Ngamat, or lingers about the place familiar to it in life, and it can also revisit the earth from the sky. The account of the Murup which was caught at the edge of the earth, on its way to Ngamat, by the medicine-man, who conveyed it back to its deserted body, is a case in point as to the first alternative. As to the second, the spirit was believed to wander about, to stand at the grave near the body, to warm itself at fires left burning in the bush, perhaps by men who had been hunting, and often to eat the scraps of food they left. The Murup ascended to the sky by the Karalk, that is, the bright rays of the setting sun, which is the path to the Tharangalk-bek, and the Karalk was said by some to be made by the Murups when in Ngamat. The Wotjo also thought that the ghost remained for some time at the grave, and they also called the sunset rays Guralk, which is evidently the same as Karalk. This suggests that the Karalk may have been the way of the Gulkan-gulkan to the Wurra-wurra (sky). With the Kurnai the Yambo was supposed to pass away as a Yambo or shadow, or as a Mrart or ghost, to a place beyond the clouds; but it did not necessarily remain there, for male and female Mrarts are believed to wander about the country which they inhabited during life. As I have elsewhere said, the term Mrart includes not only deceased relatives but also strangers, of their own tribe or of other tribes, and then they were certainly enemies to be dreaded. I was told by a Tatungalung man of the Kurnai tribe, that when
- ↑ Collins, op. cit. p. 354.
