to me in Euahlayi. Wirádjuri has bai, a footmark, and Byamee left footmarks on the rocks, but that is probably a chance coincidence.
I was first told of Byamee, in whispers, by a very old native, Yudtha Dulleebah (Bald Head), said to have been already grey haired when Sir Thomas Mitchell discovered the Narran in 1846. My informant said that he was instructed as to Byamee in his first Boorah, or initiation. If he was early grey, say at thirty, in 1846, that takes his initiation back to 1830, when, as a matter of fact, we have contemporary evidence to the belief in Byamee, who is not of missionary importation, though after 1856 Christian ideas may, through Mr. Ridley's book, have been attached to his name by educated Kamilaroi. But he was a worshipful being, revealed in the mysteries, long before missionaries came, as all my informants aver.
There has, indeed, been much dispute as to whether the Aborigines of Australia have any idea, or germ of an idea, of a God; anything more than vague beliefs about unattached spirits, mainly mischievous, who might be propitiated or scared away. Mr. Huxley maintained this view, as did Mr. Herbert Spencer.[1] Both of these authors, who have great influence on popular opinion, omitted to notice the contradictory statement of Waitz, published in 1872. He credited the natives, in some regions, with belief in, and dances performed in honour of, a 'Good Being,' and denied that the belief and rites were the result of European influence.[2] Mr. Tylor, admitting to some extent that the belief now exists, attributed it in part to the influence of missionaries and of white settlers.[3] 'Baiame,' he held, was a word of missionary manufacture, introduced about 1830-1840. This opinion was controverted by Mr. Lang,[4] and by Mr. N. W. Thomas. Mr.
- ↑ Ecclesiastical Institutions, p. 674.
- ↑ Waitz, Anthropologie der Natur-Völker, vol. vi. pp. 796-798. Leipzig, 1872.
- ↑ Journal, Anthropological Institute, vol. xxi. p. 292 et seq.
- ↑ Magic and Religion, p. 25 sq. Myth, Ritual, and Religion, vol. ii. chap. xii., 1899.
