Up to the present we have studied the doctrine of reincarnation only in the tribes of Central Australia; therefore the bases upon which our inference rests may be deemed too narrow. But in the first place, for the reasons which we have pointed out, the experiment holds good outside of the societies which we have observed directly. Also, there are abundant facts proving that the same or analogous conceptions are found in the most diverse parts of Australia or, at least, have left very evident traces there. They are found even in America.
Howitt mentions them among the Dieri of South Australia.[830] The word _Mura-mura_, which Gason translates with Good Spirit and which he thinks expresses a belief in a god creator,[831] is really a collective word designating the group of ancestors placed by the myth at the beginning of the tribe. They continue to exist to-day as formerly. "They are believed to live in trees, which are sacred for this reason." Certain irregularities of the ground, rocks and springs are identified with these Mura-mura,[832] which consequently resemble the Altjirangamitjina of the Arunta in a singular way. The Kurnai of Gippsland, though retaining only vestiges of totemism, also believe in the existence of ancestors called _Muk-Kurnai_, and which they think of as beings intermediate between men and animals.[833] Among the Nimbaldi, Taplin has observed a theory of conception similar to that which Strehlow attributes to the Arunta.[834] We find this belief in reincarnation held integrally by the Wotjobaluk in Victoria. "The spirits of the dead," says Mathews, "assemble in the _miyur_[835] of their respective clans; they leave these to be born again in human form when a favourable occasion presents itself."[836] Mathews even affirms that "the belief in the reincarnation or transmigration of souls is strongly enrooted in all the Australian tribes."[837]
If we pass to the northern regions we find the pure doctrine of the Arunta among the Niol-Niol in the north-west; every birth is attributed to the incarnation of a pre-existing soul, which introduces itself into the body of a woman.[838] In northern Queensland myths, differing from the preceding only in form, express exactly the same ideas. Among the tribes on the Pennefather River it is believed that every man has two souls: the one, called _ngai_, resides in the heart; the other, called _choi_, remains in the placenta. Soon after birth the placenta is buried in a consecrated place. A particular genius, named Anje-a, who has charge of the phenomena of procreation, comes to get this _choi_ and keeps it until the child, being grown up, is married. When the time comes to give him a son, Anje-a takes a bit of the choi of this man, places it in the embryo he is making, and inserts it into the womb of the mother. So it is out of the soul of the father that that of the child is made. It is true that the child does not receive the paternal soul integrally at first, for the _ngai_ remains in the heart of the father as long as he lives. But when he dies the _ngai_, being liberated, also incarnates itself in the bodies of the children; if there are several children it is divided equally among them. Thus there is a perfect spiritual continuity between the generations; it is the same soul which is transmitted from a father to his children and from these to their children, and this unique soul, always remaining itself in spite of its successive divisions and subdivisions, is the one which animated the first ancestor at the beginning of all things.[839] Between this theory and the one held by the central tribes there is only one difference of any importance; this is that the reincarnation is not the work of the ancestors themselves but that of a special genius who takes charge of this function professionally. But it seems probable that this genius is the product of a syncretism which has fused the numerous figures of the first ancestors into one single being. This hypothesis is at least made probable by the fact that the words Anje-a and Anjir are evidently very closely related; now the second designates the first man, the original ancestor from whom all men are descended.[840]