The Euahlayi thus present a mixture of ideas and usages which appears to be somewhat peculiar and deserving of closer study than it has received. Mr. Howitt himself refers to the tribe very seldom. It will be asked, 'How far have the Euahlayi been brought under the influence of missionaries, and of European ideas in general?'
The nearest missionary settlement was founded after we settled among the Euahlayi, and was distant about one hundred miles, at Brewarrina. None of my native informants had been at any time, to my knowledge, under the influence of missionaries. They all wore shirts, and almost all of them trousers, on occasion; and all, except the old men, my chief sources, were employed by white settlers. We conversed in a kind of LINGUA FRANCA. An informant, say Peter, would try to express himself in English, when he thought that I was not successful in following him in his own tongue. With Paddy, who had no English but a curse, I used two native women, one old, one younger, as interpreters, checking each other alternately. The younger natives themselves had lost the sense of some of the native words used by their elders, but the middle-aged interpreters were usually adequate. Occasionally there were disputes on linguistic points, when Paddy, a man already grey in 1845, would march off the scene, and need to be reconciled. They were on very good terms with me. They would exchange gifts with me: I might receive a carved weapon, and one of them some tobacco. The giving was not all on my side, by any means.
My anthropological reading was scanty, but I was well acquainted with and believed in Mr. Herbert Spencer's 'Ghost theory' of the origin of religion in the worship of ancestral spirits. What I learned from the natives surprised me, and shook my faith in Mr. Spencer's theory, with which it seemed incompatible.
In hearing the old blacks tell their legends you notice a great difference between them as raconteurs—some tell the bare plot or feature of the legend, others give descriptive touches all through. If they are strangers to their audience, they get it over as quickly as possible in a half-contemptuous way, as if saying, 'What do you want to know such rubbish for?' But if they know you well, and know you really are interested, then they tell you the stories as they would tell them to one another, giving them a new life and adding considerably to their poetical expression.
CHAPTER II
THE ALL FATHER, BYAMEE
As throughout the chapters on the customary laws, mysteries, and legends of the Euahlayi, there occur frequent mentions of a superhuman though anthropomorphic being named Byamee (in Kamilaroi and Wir djuri 'Baiame'), it is necessary to give a preliminary account of the beliefs entertained concerning him. The name Byamee (usually spelled Baiame) occurs in Euahlayi, Kamilaroi, and Wir djuri; 'the Wir djuri language is spoken over a greater extent of territory than any other tongue in New South Wales.'[R. H. Mathews, J. A. I., vol. xxxiv. p. 284.] The word occurs in the Rev. Mr. Ridley's GURRE KAMILAROI, an illustrated manual of Biblical instruction for the education of the Kamilaroi: Mr. Ridley translated our 'God' by 'Baiame.' He supposed that native term, which he found and did not introduce, to be a derivative from the verb BAIA, or BIAI, 'to make.' Literally, however, at least in Euahlayi, the word BYAMEE means 'great one.' In its sense as the name of the All Father it is not supposed to be used by women or by the uninitiated. If it is necessary to speak to them of Byamee, he is called Boyjerh, which means Father, just as in the Theddora tribe the women speak of Darramulun as PAPANG, 'Father.' [Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 493.] Among the Euahlayi both women and the uninitiated use byamee, the adjective for 'great,' in ordinary talk, though the more usual adjective answering to 'great' is BOOROOL, which occurs in Kamilaroi as well as in Euahlayi. The verb baia or biai, to make or shape, whence Mr. Ridley derived Baiame, is not known to me in Euahlayi. Wir djuri 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. [ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS, p. 674.] 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. [Waitz, ANTHROPOLOGIE DER NATUR—V(tm)LKER, vol. vi. pp. 796–798. Leipzig, 1872.] Mr. Tylor, admitting to some extent that the belief now exists, attributed it in part to the influence of missionaries and of white settlers. [Journal, Anthropological Institute, vol. xxi. p. 292 ET SEQ.] 'Baiame,' he held, was a word of missionary manufacture, introduced about 1830–1840. This opinion was controverted by Mr. Lang,[MAGIC AND RELIGION, p. 25 SQ. MYTH, RITUAL, AND RELIGION, vol. ii. chap. xii., 1899.] and by Mr. N. W. Thomas. Mr. Thomas [MAN, 1905, No. 28.] has produced the evidence of Henderson, writing in 1829–1830, for the belief in 'Piame' or Byamee, or Baiame. [OBSERVATIONS AN THE COLONIES OF NEW SOUTH WALES AND VAN DIEMAN'S LAND, p. 147.]
In 1904 Mr. Howitt gave a great mass of evidence for the belief in what he calls an 'All Father': in many dialects styled by various names meaning 'Our Father,' dwelling in or above the sky, and often receiving the souls of blacks who have been 'good.' These ideas are not derived, Mr. Howitt holds, from Europeans, or developed out of ancestor-worship, which does not exist in the tribes. The belief is concealed from women, but communicated to lads at their initiation. [Howitt, NATIVE TRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, pp. 488–508.] The belief, in favourable circumstances, might develop, Mr. Howitt thinks, into what he speaks of as a 'religion,' a 'recognised religion.' Without asking how 'a recognised religion' is to be defined, I shall merely tell what I have gathered as to the belief in Byamee among the Euahlayi.
It may seem strange that I should know anything about a belief carefully kept from women, but I have even been privileged to hear 'Byamee's Song,' which only the fully initiated may sing; an old black, as will later appear, did chant this old lay, now no longer understood, to myself and my husband. Moreover, the women of the Euahlayi have some knowledge of, and some means of, mystic access to Byamee, though they call him by another name.
Byamee, in the first place, is to the Euahlayi what the 'Alcheringa' or 'Dream time' is to the Arunta. Asked for the reason why of anything, the Arunta answer, 'It was so in the Alcheringa.' Our tribe have a subsidiary myth corresponding to that of the Alcheringa. There was an age, in their opinion, when only birds and beasts were on earth; but a colossal man and two women came from the remote north-east, changed birds and beasts into men and women, made other folk of clay or stone, taught them everything, and left laws for their guidance, then returned whence they came. This is a kind of 'Alcheringa' myth, but whether this colossal man was Byamee or not, our tribe give, as the final answer to any question about the origin of customs, 'Because Byamee say so.'