in favourable
circumstances, might develop, Mr. Howitt thinks, into what he speaks of as
a 'religion,' a 'recognised religion.' Without asking how 'a recognised
religion' is to be defined, I shall merely tell what I have gathered as to
the belief in Byamee among the Euahlayi.

It may seem strange that I should know anything about a belief
carefully kept from women, but I have even been privileged to hear
'Byamee's Song,' which only the fully initiated may sing; an old black,
as will later appear, did chant this old lay, now no longer understood,
to myself and my husband. Moreover, the women of the Euahlayi have some
knowledge of, and some means of, mystic access to Byamee, though they
call him by another name.

Byamee, in the first place, is to the Euahlayi what the 'Alcheringa' or
'Dream time' is to the Arunta. Asked for the reason why of anything,
the Arunta answer, 'It was so in the Alcheringa.' Our tribe have a
subsidiary myth corresponding to that of the Alcheringa. There was an
age, in their opinion, when only birds and beasts were on earth; but a
colossal man and two women came from the remote north-east, changed
birds and beasts into men and women, made other folk of clay or stone,
taught them everything, and left laws for their guidance, then
returned whence they came. This is a kind of 'Alcheringa' myth, but
whether this colossal man was Byamee or not, our tribe give, as the
final answer to any question about the origin of customs, 'Because
Byamee say so.' Byamee declared his will, and that was and is enough
for his children. At the Boorah, or initiatory ceremonies, he is
proclaimed as 'Father of All, whose laws the tribes are now obeying.'
Byamee, at least in one myth (told also by the Wir djuri), is the
original source of all totems, and of the law that people of the same
totem may not intermarry, 'however far apart their hunting-grounds.' I
heard first in a legend, then received confirmation from all old
blacks, that Byamee had a totem name for every part of his body, even
to a different one for each finger and toe. And when he was passing on
to fresh fields, he gave each kinship of the tribe he was leaving one
of his totems. The usual version is, that to such as were metamorphosed
from birds and animals he gave as totem the animal or whatever it was
from which they were evolved. But no one dreams of claiming Byamee as a
relation belonging to one clan; he is one apart and yet the father of
all, even as B