Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
Australia_, pp. 490 _sq._]

[Footnote 135: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
Australia_, pp. 226 _sq._ Another mythical being in which the Warramunga
believe is _the pau-wa_, a fabulous animal, half human and somewhat
resembling a dog. See Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ pp. 195, 197, 201,
210 _sq._ But the creature seems not to be a totem, for it is not
included in the list of totems given by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen (_op.
cit._ pp. 768-773).]

[Footnote 136: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
Australia_, pp. 252 _sq._]

LECTURE V

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE ABORIGINES
OF CENTRAL AUSTRALIA (_continued_)

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Central Australian aborigines concerning the
reincarnation of the dead. The mythical water-snake Wollunqua.]

In the last lecture we began our survey of the belief in immortality and
the practices to which it has given rise among the aboriginal tribes of
Central Australia. I shewed that these primitive savages hold a very
remarkable theory of birth and death. They believe that the souls of the
dead do not perish but are reborn in human form after a longer or
shorter interval. During that interval the spirits of the departed are
supposed to congregate in certain parts of the country, generally
distinguished by some conspicuous natural feature, which accordingly the
natives account sacred, believing them to be haunted by the souls of the
dead. From time to time one of these disembodied spirits enters into a
passing woman and is born as an infant into the world. Thus according to
the Central Australian theory every living person without exception is
the reincarnation of a dead man, woman, or child. At first sight the
theory seems to exclude the possibility of any worship of the dead,
since it appears to put the living on a footing of perfect equality with
the dead by identifying the one with the other. But I pointed out that
as a matter of fact these savages do admit, whether logically or not,
the superiority of their remote ancestors to themselves: they
acknowledge that these old forefathers of theirs did possess many
marvellous powers to which they themselves can lay no claim. In this
acknowledgment, accordingly, we may detect an opening or possibility for
the development of a real worship of ancestors. Indeed, as I said at the
close of last lecture, something closely approaching to ancestor worship
has ac