Religious religions belief, although much disjointed and of a sombre character, acknowledges certain gods, some beneficent, but most of them revengeful. There is no lack of legends about the creation and about stars; the heavenly bodies, by which they compute time, are uni versally adored. One of the principal beliefs is that in malicions demons and spirits, which renders darkness a horror to them; of these they enter tain the common belief that they are the souls of the dead. Yet the latter (concerning whose future existence as stars, animals, etc. different views prevail) are not unfrequently represented as mild and kindly disposed ; in such cases they are looked to as the protecting spirit of the tribe or of the individual. In some localities an individual chooses a special protecting spirit for himself upon the attainment of his majority, the spirit manifest ing itself in the form of some animal. Priests and temples are exceedingly rare ; idols of very rough workmanship are sometimes found. Magicians, on the contrary, have great and widespread authority, being considered masters of rain, of the condition of crops, of victory, sickness, and death. They also act as physicians. The belief is current that sickness is an enchantment, and that if the evil spirit, which is in the forum of a stone somewhere in the patient's body, can be driven away, the maladv will be cured. For this reason after deaths there are frequent wars of revenge against those who are believed to have brought on the evil influences.
some places the dead are burned after being placed in a hollow tree; in others buried, generally in a sitting posture, the grave being decorated in various ways. Elsewhere the body is left to moulder away on a wooden scaffold, the bones being interred after a time (N.
5). In the south-east the dead are buried in a boat-shaped kind of coffin. In Tasmania there were found little skin tents erected over the graves (pl. 6, fig. 9).
Social description serves to show that the Australians are by no means so degraded as is generally supposed, and that in a more favorable country they would certainly have developed better. In their intercourse with Europeans they appeared at first very friendly, as well as skilful in many ways; even at present in many localities they are useful, particularly for watching cattle and sheep. But the whites, whose earliest settlements were penal colonies established in the south-eastern part of the continent, treated them dishonestly and inimically, intruded upon their hunting-grounds, and injured them in every way. The laws passed for their protection came too late, and when enacted were not strictly enough executed, so that in the south and the south-east the Tasmanians were wholly, and the Australians almost entirely, driven out.
languages, which in respect to the roots of the words are often very different from one another, nevertheless arise from one common mother-tongue, and are not inconsiderably developed. They have a polysyllabic structure, but no distinction between substantive, adjective, and verb. By the use of suffixes, however, they are quite able to express various ideas of space and number, as well as numerous abstract relationships. The pronouns are richly developed, possessing a dual form, and by their aid and that of suffixes they can express notions of mood and tense. They adhere to their native tongues with great tenacity.