aborigines]
AUSTRALIA
Broken Hill, Parramatta, Goulburn, Maitland, Bathurst, Grafton, Albury, and Orange in New South Wales; Melbourne (pop. 494,000), Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong,. Warrnambool, Castlemaine, and Stawell in Victoria; Brisbane (pop. 120,000), Rockhampton, Maryborough, Townsville, Gympie, Ipswich, and Toowoomba in Queensland ; Adelaide (pop. about 162,000, including Port Adelaide) in South Australia; Perth (pop. 44,000) and Fremantle in West Australia. Aborigines. The aborigines of Australia are a single race throughout the whole continent. They are far removed in character from any other peoples, and have evidently been isolated from the rest of the human race from prehistoric times. Although their physical and mental characters stamp them as one, it is generally accepted now that the race is a blend of two or three different elements, introduced into Australia probably when the continent was still connected by dry land with New Guinea. If the aboriginal races be divided, as they conveniently may, into three classes, class A would be characterized as follows :—Hunters and fishers who dig for tubers, build crude canoes, have implements of rude design, have no fixed abode and no buildings. Class B would comprise hunters of a higher class, having finer-finished weapons, showing skill in carving, dressing neatly, and having habitations. Class C would include a higher grade, namely, those with fixed habitations, some rude method of agriculture, and some form of government. The Australian aborigines undoubtedly belong to the first or lowest class. They are typical hunters, “in this respect unapproached by the Canadian trapper, the South African bushman, or any other people, savage or civilized.” Although in physical appearance the natives vary considerably, still they are clearly differentiated from any other race. The colour of the skin ranges from dusky copper to black. Muscle is usually not well developed, the legs in particular being notably destitute of calves. The physique of the aborigines of the central and more arid portions of the continent is not, as might be expected, up to that of the favoured tribes living on the coast or coastal uplands. Except in the arid interior the Australian black-fellow averages 5 feet 6 inches in height, while savages standing 6 feet are not uncommon. There is usually an abundance of hair on the face and breast; but towards the northern portions of the continent it has been noted that the aboriginal has a less luxuriant beard. The hair of the head is raven black and wavy; this is somewhat modified where Papuan influence has been felt, the hair then being quite curly and frizzly. The peculiarities about the aboriginal’s head are very marked. The skull is abnormally thick and the cerebral capacity small. The head is long and somewhat narrow, and the forehead recedes in a marked degree. He has usually excellent teeth, and the hands and feet are not strikingly large. The black-fellow’s carriage is graceful and erect; he walks with the head well thrown back, and his senses are always on the alert. His powers in tracking, stalking his prey, and hurling his spear are proverbial. His implements, offensive and defensive, have been well described by standard authors, but little or no light has been thrown on the origin of that wonderful weapon, the boomerang. Some writers have taken the trouble to show that the boomerang was in use ages ago in Africa and in India; but if we define the boomerang as an instrument which when projected into the air returns to its thrower, it may be safely said that we have no proof that any other race ever knew of such an implement. The boomerang that returns to the thrower is rarely if ever used for fighting purposes. The stone implements of the aborigines may be said to be crude in the extreme. But any good collection of their implements will show — (1) flakes ; (2) knives, in many varieties ; (3) spear-heads ; (4) chisels ; (5) scrapers ; (6) needles or awls; (7) hammers ; (8) anvils; and (9) grinding stones. Tomahawks showing a high finish are sometimes found, but they were evidently rare. There is nothing specially distinctive about the stone implements to distinguish them from those of other primitive peoples. Closer study has not improved on previous estimates as to the paradoxical moral code of the aborigines. A wife will be beaten without mercy for unfaithfulness to her husband, but the same wife will have had to submit to the first-night promiscuity, a widespread revel which Roth shows is a regular custom in Northwest Central Queensland. A husband claims his wife as his absolute property, but he has no scruple in handing her over for a time to another man. There is no proof that anything like community of women or unlimited promiscuity exists anywhere. It would be wrong, however, to conclude that moral considerations have led up to this state of things. Of sexual morality, in the everyday sense of the word, there is none. Although not invariably cannibals, the aboriginal relishes human flesh. In his treatment of women the aboriginal may be ranked lower than even the
797
Fuegians. Early in life the young girls are subjected to horrible mutilation (introcision), which is in some obscure way associated with quite a different operation, “the terrible rite” or male introcision, to which young men are subjected. The operation may be said to be confined to the tribes of Central and Northcentral Australia. The Tasmanians knew nothing of the rite, or of circumcision, and they are believed to represent the original stock that spread over the continent, and, being the most isolated, advanced but little. The following description by Mr W. A. Horn will apply with little modification to the black-fellow over the whole continent:— “The Central Australian aboriginal is the living representative of a stone age, who still fashions his spear-heads and knives from flint or sandstone, and performs the most daring surgical operations with them. His origin and history are lost in the gloomy mists of the past. He has no written records and few oral traditions. In appearance he is a naked, hirsute savage, with a type of features occasionally pronouncedly Jewish. He is by nature light-hearted, merry and prone to laughter, a splendid mimic, supple-jointed, with an unerring hand that works in perfect unison with the eye, which is as keen as that of an eagle. He has never been known to wash. He has no private ownership of land, except as regards that which is not over-carefully concealed about his person. He cultivates nothing, and lives entirely on the spoils of the chase ; and although the thermometer frequently ranges from 15° to over 90° F. in twenty-four hours, and his country is by no means devoid of furred game, he makes no use of the skins for clothing, but goes about during the day and sleeps in the open at night perfectly nude. He builds no permanent habitation and usually camps where night or fatigue overtakes him. He can travel from point to point for hundreds of miles through the pathless bush with unerring precision, and track an animal over rocks and stones, where a European eye would be unable to distinguish a mark. He is a keen observer, and knows the habits and changes of form of every variety of animal or vegetable in his country. Religious belief he has none, but is excessively superstitious, living in constant dread of an Evil Spirit which is supposed to lurk around his camp at night. He has no gratitude except that of the anticipatory order, and is as treacherous as Judas. He has no traditions, and yet continues to practise with scrupulous exactness a number of hideous customs and ceremonies which have been handed down from his fathers, and of the origin or reason of which he knows nothing. Ofttimes kind and even affectionate to those of his children who have been permitted to live, he yet practises, without any reason except that his father did so before him, the most cruel and revolting mutilations upon the young men and maidens of his tribe.” Every traveller on the Queensland coast must have noticed that, directly a boat puts off for the shore, smoke signals ascend from point to point as far as the eye can reach. It is now ascertained that information of a varied character can be conveyed over long distances by smoke signals. For the purpose of signalling, the Queensland blacks use a complicated system based on the following signals:—(1) The slender column of light-coloured smoke ; (2) a heavy column of smoke ; (3) a slender column of black smoke ; (4) interrupted or intermittent columns of smoke ; (5) groups or columns of smoke columns. Much attention has been given to the instrument known as “ bullroarer,” as being one of the few instruments used by the Australian aboriginal and far-distant primitive peoples. A flat piece of wood is attached at one end to a string and rapidly whirled in sling fashion. Vibrations are set up resulting in a roar, which has an extraordinary effect upon the hearer. Women and children are never allowed to see the instrument; and when in the absolute stillness of the forest the buzzing of the roar rises and falls, people unable to account for such weird sounds are awed beyond measure. Mr A. W. Howitt, writing on the subject, remarks : “ The universality of its use, and under the same conditions, in world-wide localities, is one of the most puzzling questions in this branch of anthropology, and can only, as it seems to me, point to its extreme antiquity.” The most cursory observer of the aboriginal will notice that he makes no visible acknowledgment of a Supreme Being. He has no altar and no form of sacrifice. The fear of any future punishment or the hope of any future reward is neither a deterrent nor an incentive. If he has a religion, it is something completely apart from morals. There is no evidence to show that a black-fellow is guided or influenced in any action by the knowledge of a Supreme Power to whom he is responsible. The route by which the blacks arrived in Australia has not yet been placed beyond question. If the Tasmanians be accepted as the nearest approach to the primitive type, then we have a race that had neither a boomerang nor a shield. Their whole belongings consisted of stone tomahawks and a few crude spears. If this represents the stage to which primitive man had reached when the blacks first peopled Australia, then their coming must be placed far back in the early history of mankind. That they have been isolated for long ages may be taken for granted. They have de-
