The people are governed by the heads of families, who settle quarrels and preserve order. The unmarried men have a place set apart for them, and they are not permitted to associate with the females.
They receive messengers and visitors at their encampments; and plenty of employment is found for all in hunting or fishing, or gathering roots and seeds, in cooking, in eating, and in fighting. They have many amusements—and a corrobboree is to them what a great ball is to the whites in a European city. The dancers have to paint themselves, and the women have to be in readiness to sing and to beat time. There are endless sources of enjoyment when a large meeting takes place; but on the whole the life of a savage is one of trouble. He is either very hungry or has eaten too much. He is often very cold, or suffering from the heat. He is never sure of his life. He may be speared by an enemy lurking in the bush—the Nerum may be in the hands of a foe at night; a sorcerer may have taken some of his hair, or a distant doctor may be arranging measures for securing his kidney-fat—and there are noises at night that terrify him. His wives, too, give him trouble, and his children need guidance.
He is, however, often a cheerful, merry fellow, willing to be amused, and finding amusement in childish entertainments.
I have given an account of his mode of life during the four seasons, of his methods of climbing trees, his manner of signalling by the smoke of fires; his fights, his dances, and of other matters that are of importance to him in his life in the forest; but his history is yet to be written. I am compelled by circumstances to present fragments only of a work that was intended to include all that relates to the habits of the natives.
The section of this work which treats of the several kinds of food upon which the natives had to depend for subsistence before the country was occupied by the whites has been prepared with great care. Many correspondents have rendered much assistance; and the facts that have been gathered together will be useful to settlers in all parts of Australia, and will, it is hoped, also prove interesting to the naturalist.
An attempt has been made to give as complete an account as possible of all the animals and plants that are eaten by the blacks; and there are now put in a small compass, in addition to what is new, many facts that the reader could not find without a laborious search, scattered as they are through books of travels, pamphlets, and scientific papers—some of which are now rare.
It was at first intended to restrict the descriptions to the products of Victoria; but as the southernmost part of Australia is deficient in many vegetables in the treatment of which the natives display remarkable skill, and as they practise in other parts of the continent methods of capturing animals that are here altogether unknown, it was decided to enlarge the section. Indeed it would have been unjust to the natives not to have mentioned some of the facts referred to by Grey, by the Jardines, by Thozet, and others. The extraordinary perseverance and skill exhibited by the blacks in hunting and fishing, their ready adaptation of the simplest means to accomplish any given purpose, and their power to combine when they find it necessary to construct such a work of art
