Page:The aborigines of Australia.djvu/65

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THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA.

aborigines, or, at least, much perverted. Formerly they were resorted to by the blacks in order to diversify the nature of their occupations of hunting and fishing, and, no doubt, added materials to their scanty stock of enjoyment. Now they are in general the scenes of drunken and brutal broils, for the most part got up by the whites in the interior for the purpose of gratifying a corrupt curiosity to witness the antics of the aborigines when intoxicated. In these scenes we see exemplified the degradation to which humanity, even in its lowest form, may be reduced by the devices of men, when, from some cause or other, the hellish tendencies of the human heart and head conspire for such a purpose. Thus, the brutalized shepherd or bullock driver of the interior affords to the aboriginal a plentiful supply of rum for the purpose of amusing himself, and being gratified by the fact that some other being is more depraved and debased than himself, by which he only copies in a manner some of the civilized and polished governments of Europe of former and present times, who, for the purpose of degrading men and nations, shut up the roads of knowledge and civilization to a large section of the human family, in order that they might thereby be rendered the helpless victims of tyranny and plunder.

To return The "Kradga Kibba," or "doctor-stone," as the words signify, is a talisman, used by those among the aborigines who usually perform the functions of physicians, for the purpose of effecting