ABORIGINAL THEOSOPHISTS

Otago Witness, Issue 2842, 2 September 1908, Page 58

ABORIGINAL THEOSOPHISTS

By Womba, In reading your account of a lecture bj )£tt A. Besant I could not help beinj struck with the similarity of the theoriei of the Theosophists and the absolute belie of the Australian aborigines, that they a least live on earth again. One of tin t«nete of the Theosophiste is, I understand that at one time — perhaps thousands o years ago— our souls, when roaming aboul at large in the spiritual world, met theii affinities ; these came together promiscu oosly on earth again. Then after deatt the souls kept on doing the same thing; and kept on .wandering about somewnem till they found another affinity, or some thing of the sort— at least, that is what 1 can gather from any Theosophistic literature I have come across. The Australiar aborigine is far more practical, and actually locates where the souls oi the dead gc without any theory or sounding phrases. 35hey believe that when one of them die* his spirit or soul becomes a bird, beast, oi fch. Those nearly related to the defunct one thereafter have a special regard for that particular bird, beast, or fish. Whether certain families have their own special receptacle for their souls I was unable to find out, but I think that it is co However, lam perfectly certain that they will not eat the flesh of the special Wrd, beast, or fish in which the spirit* oi their ancestors have taken up their abode. They call this peculiar spirit or soul "Mahmadee," although that is also their name for father ; " Nungadee " being their same for mother. It was very puzzling to get at their Cleaning for some time, but a more intiinate acquaintance with their language proved that many of their words, like English words, 6ound alike— such as box, •would, etc. Other instances besides mahmadee are " neulah," which is used for here, there, also another. They say "banama neulah" (stop here), or "neulah •womba" (there is a blackfellow). " Meruda " means the shade of a tree, also « good place to camp. To prove what I mean, it will be necessary to Tevert to personal narrative. About 35 yearß ago I- happened to spend an evening .fishing on the Lachlan River, a few miles below Cowra (N.S.W.). My companion was a native known as " Sir " Watkins. He had lost an arm when, as a tracker, he accompanied the- police in their ©Sorts to, capture the Ben Hall and Gilbert 'gang of T>ushrangers. At one encounter Watkins behaved with great gameness, and went at the bushrangers, but the police ■were not taking any risks, and hung back. Poor Watkins. got his arm shattered by a revolver or rifle bullet, and had to get it cut off. As he had shown pluck on otheT occasions He was dubbed "Sir" Watkins. We had fair suooess fishing, as we were using shrimps and worms. I had to bait his hooks for him. The fish caught were, cod, bream, and catfish. When we caoift to divide our catch he would not take any of the cod, stating as his reason that they were " mahmadee," and as he could speak good English, he explained that they were his father or brothers, so he could not eat them. I thought he was humbugging me, but as there was one fine cod about 71b weight and others I got rather the best of the deal. " Sir " Watkins dragged his relatives oiit by the nose without compunction, but drew a line at eating them. The next time I came across a practical instance of their belief was when camped on Cooper's Creek, not- very far from where the unfortunate explorers Burke end Wills lost their lives. I was in charge of a mob of fat cattle for the Sydney market from Anandale, at that time (1882) the furthest westward station. I had with me two natives, Charlie and Jimmy, and a white called T. Parker, as good a man in every way as I ever had on the road. We happened to be rather short of provisions, but I managed, by good luck, to shoot one of the small plain kangaroos called " katapillah " by some tribes. We soon had some kangaroo steaks on the hot embers, but Jimmy would not touch any of the meat, but solaced himself with sundry roasted lizards and a green snake. Again -it .was the same story, "Mahlaadee" — the spirit of his ancestors lived jn that particular species of kangaroo. Again, when forming one of the pioneer cattle stations in Kimberley, W.A., on several occasions I had practical proof of this belief. When doing a bit eff exploring and cattle hunting, accompanied by two natives, Elamang and Gogity, I shot an emu, and as we were a long way from Ahe camp, and had picked up some of the cattle, the only thing to be done sras to camp out. As we had no flour ito make johnny cakes, we had to eat isteaks from the emu, which are not bad when you are hungry. Elamang enjoyed (the emu flesh, and so did I, but Gogity explained that it was " mahmadee " for *im, and made his supper off roast 'possum. Elamang reckoned that the (black duck was his particular '! mahanadee," but would devour any other bird, •beast, or reptile. So would any of the others, every living thing being moolah <food) in their estimation, except the particular animal or bird the spirit of their' ancestors Bad chosen. One could write a lot of theories about 'this peculiar belief, and make learned disquisitions that no one, even the Theopphiets themselves, could understand, but it would do no good. The fact remains that a race that is fast disappearing have an absolute belief, whereas those that fancy themselves advanced thinkers, and try to make out they are advancing a fresh theory, only grope about in the \jark. The Spiritualists are on a par with the Theosophists, and if what I saw at one of their meetings is their notion of what pecomes of our souls when we die, the Alleged ignorant black beats them hands down. I allude to a picture shown of a decidedly ugly angel, who 6cemed to be flying nowhere in nfrticuiar, with what. i> as

the cattle, the only

' supposed to be a soul tucked under Its arm like a brown paper parcel. Another beautiful theory might be started, and volumes written about the beauty of the " mahmadee " belief — how nice it would be to have the loved ones always with us y on earth, and so on. The aborigine, howU ever, does not know which particular B member of the bird, beast, or fish his anf eestore appropriated, so he eschews them X, all lest Ml should eat the wrong one.