ection with an oak log. Yet surely
there was "something sacred" in the faith of Zeus! Let us judge the
Australians as we judge Greeks. The precepts as to "speaking the
straightforward truth," as to unselfishness, avoidance of quarrels,
of wrongs to "unprotected women," of unnatural vices, are certainly
communicated in the Mysteries of some tribes, with, in another,
knowledge of the name and nature of "Our Father," Munganngaur. That a
Totemistic dance, or medicine-dance of Emu hunting, is also displayed(3)
at certain Mysteries of a given tribe, and that Baiame is spoken of
as the hero of this ballet, no more deprives the Australian moral and
religious teaching (at the Mysteries) of sacred value, than the stupid
indecency whereby Baubo made Demeter laugh destroys the sacredness of
the Eleusinia, on which Pindar, Sophocles and Cicero eloquently dwell.
If the Australian mystae, at the most solemn moment of their lives, are
shown a dull or dirty divine ballet d'action, what did Sophocles see,
after taking a swim with his pig? Many things far from edifying, yet the
sacred element of religious hope and faith was also represented. So it
is in Australia.

(1) J. A. I., xxiv. p. 416.

(2) Religion in Greek Literature, p. 259. It is to be regretted that the
learned professor gives no references. The Greek Mysteries are treated
later in this volume.

(3) See A picture of Australia, 1829, p. 264.

These studies ought to be comparative, otherwise they are worthless. As
Mr. Hartland calls Daramulun "an eternal Creator with a game leg" who
"died," he may call Zeus an "eternal father, who swallowed his wife,
lay with his mother and sister, made love as a swan, and died, nay, was
buried, in Crete". I do not think that Mr. Hartland would call Zeus "a
ghost-god" (my own phrase), or think that he was scoring a point against
me, if I spoke of the sacred and ethical characteristics of the Zeus
adored by Eumaeus in the Odyssey. He would not be so humorous about
Zeus, nor fall into an ignoratio elenchi. For my point never was
that any Australian tribe had a pure theistic conception unsoiled and
unobliterated by myth and buffoonery. My argument was that AMONG
their ideas is that of a superhuman being, unceasing (if I may not say
eternal), a maker (if I may not say a Creator), a guardian of certain
by no means despicable ethics, which I never proclaimed as supernormally
inspired! It is no reply to me to say that, in or out of Mysteries, l