A Voyage to Botany Bay by George Barrington

I HAVE been thus minute in detailing the behaviour of the natives, and the persevering diligence and inexhaustible patience of Governor Philip, in conciliating and familiarizing them, in the infancy of the colony, that, should they hereafter attain any degree of civilization, posterity may know to whom they are indebted for the extrication of numberless tribes from the rudest barbarism, thereby adding to society the inhabitants of a country, which occupies a section of the globe of greater extent than all Europe, and capable of becoming a great and powerful empire.

With regard to religion, they sing an hymn, or song of joy, from day--break till sun-rise; but we have not been yet able to discover whether they have any particular object to whom they pay adoration; neither do any of the celestial bodies seem to occupy more of their attention than any of the animals which inhabit this extensive country; yet they do not appear entirely ignorant of a future state, as they say the bones of the dead are in the grave, and their bodies in the clouds; or may probably have been misunderstood, and mean that the soul is in the clouds. They most certainly burn their dead; for on opening a new made grave, a quantity of white ashes were found, which appeared to have been but lately deposited there; among the ashes were found part of a human jaw--bone, and a piece of a skull, which had not been sufficiently burnt to prevent its being perfectly ascertained. The grave was not a foot deep, but the earth was raised as high round it as are the common graves in England. The sun, moon, and stars; they call wera (bad). Araboe once went into fits on seeing a falling star, and said that every body would be destroyed; although some who were present insisted that she particularly alluded to the "murray nowey," the Sirius, which was lost some time after at Norfolk Island. From Banalong we understood they believe in apparitions, which they call "mane; " he describes them as ascending from the earth with a horrid noise, seizing any one in its way by the throat: he says these apparitions singe the hair and beards of those to whom they appear, which he said was a very painful operation; rubbing the face after every application of the firebrand.