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The dissimilarity of the various dialects to what we deem the parent one—that is, the one spoken by the inhabitants of Central Australia—is fully accounted for by the persistent endeavour to forget, which we have before shown, to be one of the leading characteristics of the aborigines.
Should our theory of the course followed by the earliest of this race be correct, it would not be altogether beyond the pale of possibility to trace these people back even to pre-historic man, whose remains have frequently been found in Europe side by side, with the "kitchen-midden," stone axe, and spear barb, all of which latter pertain in exact similitude at this day to the aborigines of Australia.
Personal nomenclature is, in almost every instance, due to individual characteristics, or peculiarities perceivable in physique or manner, as the few following examples will clearly enough show.
Yandy murnangin—left-handed.[1]
Mirmile mirnen—squint-eyed.
Kyup tnirmen—one-eyed.
Mirmile tchantchew[2]—crooked nose.
Cowendurn—the creeper.
Walpa chinangin—burnt foot.
Boceroin—the breaker.
Waikeroo weorinen—ugly mouth.
- ↑ According to physiologists, right and left handedness is due entirely to training from the very earliest childhood, until the habit (whichever it may be) becomes confirmed. This may be correct as regards civilsed man, but it is not so in primitive man, taking these aborigines in illustration. Amongst them a left-handed or ambidexter man is as rare as in civilised life, the right being the premier one, as with ourselves, and these people grow up as nature made them, untrammelled either by laws or rules.
- ↑ It is here apparent, that the olfactory nerve derives its name from the sound made by sneezing.
