God hath showed it unto them ... being understood by the things which are made ... but they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.’[23] In fact, mythology submerged religion.  St. Paul’s theory of the origin of religion is not that of an ‘innate idea,’ nor of a direct revelation.  People, he says, reached the belief in a God from the Argument for Design.  Science conceives herself to have annihilated teleological ideas.  But they are among the probable origins of religion, and would lead to the belief in a Creator, whom the Greenlander thought beneficent, and after whom he yearned.  This is a very different initial step in religious development, if initial it was, from the feeding of a corpse, or a ghost.

From all this evidence it does not appear how non-polytheistic, non-monarchical, non-Manes-worshipping savages evolved the idea of a relatively supreme, moral, and benevolent Creator, unborn, undying, watching men’s lives.  ’He can go everywhere, and do everything.’[24]

[Footnote 1:  Fitzroy, ii. 180.  Darwin. Descent of Man, p. 67.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid.  We seem to have little information about Fuegian religion either before or after the cruise of the Beagle.]

[Footnote 3:  Principles of Sociology, i. 422.]

[Footnote 4:  Fitzroy, ii. 190, 191]

[Footnote 5:  Travels in West Africa, p. 442.]

[Footnote 6:  Early Voyages to Australia, 102-111 (Hakluyt Society).]

[Footnote 7:  Science and Hebrew Tradition, p. 846.]

[Footnote 8:  Journal of the Anthrop.  Institute, 1884.  See, for less dignified accounts, op. cit. xxiv. xxv.]

[Footnote 9:  Journal, xiii. 193.]

[Footnote 10:  Journal, xiii. 296.]

[Footnote 11:  Op. cit. p. 450.]

[Footnote 12:  P. 453.]

[Footnote 13:  P. 457.]

[Footnote 14:  See Brough Smyth, Aborigines, i. 426; Taplin, Native Races of Australia.  According to Taplin, Nurrumdere was a deified black fellow, who died on earth.  This is not the case of Baiame, but is said, rather vaguely, to be true of Daramulun. J.A.I., xiii. 194, xxv. 297.]

[Footnote 15:  From a brief account of the Fire Ceremony, or Engwurra of certain tribes in Central Australia, it seems that religious ceremonies connected with Totems are the most notable performances.  Also ’certain mythical ancestors,’ of the ‘alcheringa, or dream-times,’ were celebrated; these real or ideal human beings appear to ’sink their identity in that of the object with which they are associated, and from which they are supposed to have originated.’  There appear also to be places haunted by ‘spirit individuals,’ in some way mixed up with Totems, but nothing is said of sacrifice to these Manes.  The brief account is by Professor Baldwin Spencer and Mr. F.J.  Gillen, Proc.  Royal Soc.  Victoria, July 1897.  This Fire Ceremony is not for lads—­not a kind of confirmation in the savage church—­but is intended for adults.]