person was never mentioned after his death, and when a white man has carelessly or recklessly spoken of a dead man by name, the blacks there have been seen to hang their heads sorrowfully, while one of them would remonstrate, if he had any respect for the speaker, otherwise they would endeavour to turn the conversation. All implements, indeed every piece of inanimate property he had possessed, were interred with his body.[1] In the tribes about Maryborough (Queensland) the name of a dead man must not be mentioned, and any one doing so would be told, "Do not say that." My informant's brother narrowly escaped being killed by a friend of the dead man throwing a spear at him, which went through his clothes.[2]
These beliefs are similar, or identical, with beliefs which are world wide; and, bearing in mind the long isolation of the Australians in this continent, two alternative explanations suggest themselves. The ancestors of the Australians may have brought them from the primitive home of the race, or their descendants may have evolved them independently of any outside source. Yet it might be that both sources have contributed to the present state of belief. For the mental constitution of all races of man, is the same in kind, though differing in degree; and where two savage races are in about the same low level of culture and under the same physical conditions, the results are likely to be the same, although they may be separated by great distances from each other.
Thus with the Australians, their dreams could only represent the universe as it seemed to them, and, as the Kurnai man said of himself, they would see in sleep, distant people, even those who were dead. If we admit their inability to see the difference between real events of waking hours and the unreal ones of dreams, then it is easily seen how the beliefs, which I have noted in this and the previous chapter, may have been developed. Yet, on the other hand, it must be remembered that however low in culture the Australian ancestors may have been, as low as, or even lower than, the extinct Tasmanians, they must have had
