_Religious Ideas._--Their religious ideas were exceedingly meagre and uncertain. To Mr. Horton's enquiries, in 1821, they answered, "don't know," with broad grins: he was probably not understood. They appear to have had no religious rites, and few congenial ideas: they dreaded darkness, and feared to wander from their fires: they recognised a malignant spirit, and attributed strong emotions to the devil. The feats imputed to his agency, do not much differ from the sensations of night-mare: they believed him to be _white_--a notion supported by very substantial reasons, and suggested by their national experience: this idea must have been modern. They ascribed extraordinary convulsions to this malignant power, and to his influence they traced madness. Lord Monboddo might have contrived their account of the creation: they were formed with tails, and without knee-joints, by a benevolent being: another descended from heaven, and compassionating the sufferers, cut off the tail; and with grease softened the knees.
As to a future state, they expected to re-appear on an island in the Straits, and "to jump up white men." They anticipated in another life the full enjoyment of what they coveted in this. These scraps of theology, when not clearly European, are of doubtful origin: nothing seems certain, except that they dreaded mischief, from demons of darkness. Though they had no idols, they possessed some notions of statuary: it was sufficiently rude. They selected stones, about ten inches high, to represent absent friends; one of greater dimensions than common, Backhouse observed that they called Mother Brown.
Persons of sanguine minds are apt to attribute to them religious ideas, which they never possessed in their original state. The notion of a spirit, however, exists on the continent: in this, the Tasmanian black participated. Their ideas were extremely indefinite, and will not refute, or much support the belief, that the recognition of a Divinity is an universal tradition.
_The Sick._--They suffered from several diseases, which were often fatal. Rheumatism and inflammations were cured by incisions: the loathsome eruption, called the native leprosy, they relieved by wallowing in ashes: the catarrh was very destructive, in certain seasons; a whole tribe on the Huon perished, except one woman. The native doctor said, that it was the _devil_ that killed them: the woman described the process by feigned coughing. Their surgery was simple: they cut gashes with crystal. They treated a snake bite by boring the wound with a charred peg; stuffed it with fur, and then singed off the surplus to the level of the skin. They had faith in charms: thigh bones were especially useful, and were fastened on the head in a triangle: these relics were found very effectual. There were some who practised more than others, and therefore called doctors by the English: one of these feigned inspiration, and brandished his club. The sick were often deserted: their tribes could neither convey them, nor wait for their recovery. Food and a lenitive were left within their reach, and when able they followed their kinsmen; the alternative is the terrible risk of a wandering life. This custom was modified by circumstances, and sometimes by the relatives of the sufferer.
