e surface, not unnaturally describes as secret
murder; but in reality ... every case of such secret murder, when one
or more men stealthily stalk their prey with the object of killing him,
is in reality the exacting of a life for a life, the accused person
being indicated by the so-called medicine man as one who has brought
about the death of another man by magic, and whose {46} life must
therefore be forfeited" (_Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 48).

What underlies this idea that by man alone is death brought into the
world is that death is unnatural and is no part of the original design
of things. When the fact comes to be recognised undeniably that deaths
not caused by human agency do take place, then the fact requires
explanation; and the explanation on which primitive races, quite
independently of each other, hit is that as death was no part of the
original design of things, its introduction was due to accident or
mistake. Either men were originally exempt from death, or they were
intended to be exempt. If they were intended to be exempt, then the
inference drawn is that the intention was frustrated by the
carelessness of the agent intrusted with the duty of making men
deathless. If they were originally exempt from death, then the loss of
the exemption has to be accounted for. And in either case the
explanation takes the form of a narrative which relates how the mistake
took place or what event it was that caused the loss of the exemption.
I need not quote examples of either class of narrative. What I wish to
do is to emphasise the fact that by primitive man death is felt to be
inconsistent with the {47} scheme of things. First, therefore, he
denies that it can come in the course of nature, though he admits that
it may be procured by the wicked man in the way of murder or magic.
And it is at this stage that his hope of reunion with those loved and
lost scarcely stretches beyond the prospect of their return to this
world. Evidence of this stage is found partly in tales such as those
told of the mother who returns to revisit her child, or of persons
restored to life. Stories of this latter kind come from Tasmania,
Australia, and Samoa, amongst other places, and are found amongst the
Eskimo and American Indians, as well as amongst the Fjorts (J. A.
MacCullough, _The Childhood of Fiction_, ch. IV). Even more direct
evidence of the emotion which prompts these stories is afforded by the
Ho dirge, quoted