Early Days in North Queensland

by Edward Palmer

Where did they land first?

Where are their ancestors?

Were they ever civilised?

These and similar questions occur to those who regard the natives of Australia with interest. They live only in the past, there is no future for them, here at least. Their origin is involved in impenetrable obscurity. Scarcely on the earth is to be found a race similar to the aboriginals, whilst their antiquity is beyond doubt, and also the fact that they have a common origin. Their speech, habits, colour, customs, and superstitions, proclaim in the strongest terms that they all came from a common source; from the far north of Australia to the farthest south, a hundred proofs are forthcoming to show a common ancestry. Words that have a similar meaning are used on the Darling River and in places in the Gulf of Carpentaria; the weapons are similar all over the continent; their faces and figures are similar, allowing for the effects of varieties of food and climate. In the three hundred years since the first contact between Europeans and the New Hollanders, no change has occurred; they were then spread over Australia, the same in habits and life as they are now, and the only result of the contact of the two races of men, the civilised and the savage, is that the native is fading away before the white man like mist before the morning sun. Nothing can avert the doom that is written as plainly as was the writing on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast. And to what purpose would we preserve them? What good could accrue from maintaining a remnant of a race that it is impossible to civilise. The buffalo of America, like the Red Indian himself (the hunter and the hunted), pass over the river in front of the advancing tide of civilisation.

As a study, the native race of Australia is eminently interesting, for in them we have living representatives of the stone age; remarkable for their pureness of race, having had no admixture from any other nation through countless generations for their great antiquity, for before the pyramids of Egypt were built, they had occupied Australia and for the silence of all history and traditions concerning them and their destiny of doom; as a race problem they are full of interest.

From Cape York to the Great Australian Bight, and from the Leeuwin to the Great Sandy Spit on Frazer’s Island, there is no difference in the type of the native of Australia, although the quality and quantity of their food has caused some of the tribes to be more robust and better developed than others. In the north, where food is plentiful, there are many fine specimens of men over the average height of the European. Many of the northern aboriginals are tall, muscular men, of great activity and endurance, with keen sight and observation, and they often attain to a good old age. Nearly all are bearded, with hair that is wavy rather than straight or curly. They are not a cowardly race, as among themselves they conduct their fights with a certain degree of honour, and with great pluck, not taking advantage of an opponents’ accident. They excel in throwing their spears with the wommera or throwing stick, and can hit a mark at a distance of seventy to eighty yards with great force; the boomerang is used for game, such as ducks or pigeons, as well as in warfare, and is really a formidable weapon. On the north-east coast, they use a wooden sword which is wielded with both hands, and seems to have been an improvement or an innovation on the boomerang, where the dense scrubs prohibited the use of the throwing weapon.

They appear to have been from all time a race of hunters, ever living on the products of the chase, and from the scarcity of game, and difficulty in keeping it when killed, they seldom remain more than one or two nights in one camp, but move about in small parties. Although the tribes or families are always on the move—a nomad hunter race—their districts are well defined, and they seldom trespass on the hunting grounds of an adjoining tribe, unless with consent. This strict delimitation of districts and dislike of trespass, has led to a great diversity in their dialects, and every little tribe seems to have a different language; in a distance of one or two hundred miles, the names for the commonest things may be altered, although the same social system prevails substantially throughout all tribes, with little or no variation.

In their original state they could not have been an unhappy people; when food was plentiful, they made weapons and shaped their stone tomahawks, which of itself was a work of slow progress; they wove nets for their game, and composed or sang their wild songs, or still wilder corroborrees, or dances. Obedient to the laws and customs handed down from their ancient forefathers, and following out the rites of their marriage laws with great strictness, they lived healthy lives to a good old age, while the increase of the race was checked by the amount of food each district could supply. With the advent of the white race, the social system that held them together for thousands of years, became disturbed and broken into, and their natural food supplies were destroyed. Thus, with the introduction of new diseases, this primitive race of mankind is fast disappearing, apparently without a thought or struggle or hope, and after a few years not a remnant of them, or any sign of their occupation of the country will remain. Some of their customs appear to be very general, such as knocking out the two front teeth among women, and sometimes among men; this is done by a sudden blow on the end of a stick which is placed on the tooth, and then knocked inwards. A very general custom is boring a hole through the septum of the nose, although it is not often that an ornament is put through it. Another manner of adornment is by raised cicatrices made on the chest and back and arms, by cutting the skin with a piece of sharp flint and putting in gum or clay. In their native state, they do not appear to have made any attempt at any kind of covering or dress, either male or female, except that young girls wore an apron round the loins made of fibre or grass hanging down a few inches. For camping at night they used ti-tree or other bark as a shelter when procurable, and always slept between two or three small fires, making a slight hollow in the ground so as to get the warmth of the fire above them, and generally choosing the sandy beds of rivers away from the wind. In the Gulf country, during the wet season, they made small sleeping benches raised on forks driven in the ground, about three feet high, with sheets of bark laid flat, and over them other sheets of bark bent in a half-circle, so as to throw off rain; beneath these structures or sleeping places they kept up a smoke to save them from the mosquitoes, which in the Northern Peninsula, were dreadfully annoying. It was the duty of the gins to keep the fire going during the night. In dry weather or windy nights, a breakwind made of boughs or branches was used as a protection, behind which they made their small fires for sleeping by. The cooking was generally done away from their camp fires, mostly during the daytime.

In the Gulf country also, the coast blacks make small gunyahs of bent twigs thatched with grass. These are only used during the wet season as a protection, chiefly from mosquitoes.

The treatment of the native races has always been a difficult question. Whenever new districts were settled, the blacks had to move on to make room; the result was war between the races. The white race were the aggressors, as they were the invaders of the blacks’ hunting territory. The pioneers cannot be condemned for taking the law into their own hands and defending themselves in the only way open to them, for the blacks own no law themselves but the law of might. The protection of outside districts by the Native Police, was the only course open, although the system cannot very well be defended any more than what was done under it can be. The white pioneers were harder on the blacks in the way of reprisals when they were forced to deal with them for spearing their men or their cattle or horses even than the Native Police. But how were property and the lives of stockmen, shepherds, and prospectors in the north to be protected unless by some summary system of retribution by Native Police or bands of pioneers? The vices and diseases of the white race have been far more fatal to the blacks than the rifles of the pioneers, more particularly when they were allowed about the towns, where they always exhibit the worst traits of their character, becoming miserable creatures, useless for any purpose, and an eyesore to everyone. Those employed on stations as stockriders and horse-hunters become very useful and clever at the business, having a special aptitude for working among stock, and they are, as a rule, well treated, clothed, and fed. The Northern Peninsula up to Cape York is the only territory in Queensland where the natives may still be found in their original state, and on some of the rivers flowing into the Gulf they are still numerous.