les and thrown them from the sky down into the
water in a stone basin on the top of the sacred mountain; as the
pebbles fell in, the water splashed up into the clouds above, whence it
descended as the desired rain.

It is told to me, that at some initiatory rites the oldest medicine
man, or Wirreenun, present addresses a prayer to Byamee, asking him to
give them long life, as they have kept his law.

The tribesmen do not profess to pray, or to have prayed, to Byamee on
any occasions except at funerals, and at the conclusion of the Boorah.

As for Byamee's relation to ethics, it will be stated in the chapter on
the tribal ceremonies, while the stories as to the rewards and
punishments of the future life will be given in their place. Baiame's
troubles with a kind of disobedient deputy, Darramulun, will also be
narrated: the myth is current, too, among the Wir djuri tribe.

Other particulars about Byamee will occur in the course of later
chapters: here I have tried to give a general summary of the native
beliefs. The reader may interpret them in his own fashion, and may
decide as to whether the beliefs do or do not indicate a kind of
'religion,' whether 'a recognised religion' or not. There is
necessarily, of course, an absence of temples and of priests, and I
have found no trace or vestige of sacrifice. What may be said on the
affirmative side as to the religious aspect of the belief, the reader
can supply from the summary of facts. Other potent beings occur in
native myth, as we shall show, but there appears to exist between them
and mankind no relation of affection, reverence, or duty, as in the
case of Byamee.

Here it seems necessary to advert to a remark of Mr. Howitt's which
appears to be erroneous. He says 'that part of Australia which I have
indicated as the habitat of that belief' (namely, in an All Father),'
is also the area where there has been the advance from group marriage
to individual marriage; from descent in the female line to that in the
male line; where the primitive organisation under the class system has
been more or less replaced by an organisation based on locality; in
fact, where these advances have been made to which I have more than
once drawn attention.'[Howitt, NATIVE TRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA,
p. 500.]

Mr. Howitt forgets that he himself attributes the early system of
descent through women, and also the belief in an All Father (Nurelli),
to the Wiimbaio tribe [IBID. p. 489] to the