In view of the great number of Australian tribes and the multiplicity of their dialects, any attempt at linguistic generalizations would seem to be futile, when often even adjoining tribes have adopted totally different vocabularies for the most common commodities of life. As a matter of fact, the groups which build up one and the same big tribe often have considerable differences in their vocabularies. For instance, the eastern groups of the Arunndta make use of very many words and expressions which are quite foreign to the western. Yet in respect of certain words, it is known that with slight modifications their significance has carried far beyond the borders of a single tribe and has been accepted by a group of tribes living up to a few hundred miles apart.
Although the aboriginal tongue is crude in its construction, it is, nevertheless, wonderfully rich and scientifically exact. Whereas a modern language becomes very commonplace in the ordinary course of conversation, and is inclined to handle subject matter somewhat flippantly, the aboriginal system of nomenclature is both profuse and incontrovertible. During his descriptive narrations from Nature, a European rarely bothers about discriminating between objects composing one big class. If he talks of a forest, he is usually satisfied to convey the idea of a number of trees standing collectively at the site his story is dealing with; if he wishes to be exact he might specially describe the trees as pines or gums. But the aboriginal wants, and gives, more; his vocabulary, in fact, rarely includes such words as “tree,” “animal,” “meat,” or “seed”; he tells you immediately, without being specially asked, that the “tree” is a gum, the “animal” a wallaby, the “meat” that of kangaroo, and the “seed” that of the water-lily. Moreover, his verbal supply is so copious that in a single word he can tell one the name, the age, the habitat, and many characteristics.
A language without words is known to most Australian natives; thoughts and messages are communicated by means of gestures from individual to individual, and from tribe to tribe. This system is so perfect, and the code so well understood by all, that important tidings are transmitted from one centre to another in incredibly short time. The method might to a certain extent be compared with the flag-signalling of a marine; it is too complicated to be discussed in detail, but we shall select a few code signals by way of illustration.
Halloa! To attract the attention of a person whom conversation is to be taken up with, the native, standing as erect as possible, and with his legs astride, lifts his hands to his head and swings them outwards (in opposite directions), downwards, and upwards again, time after time. Whilst doing so, he calls aloud, with a shrill, piercing note, even though the other fellow be well beyond hearing distance.
PLATE LII
Aluridja man rendering a musical accompaniment with boomerangs.
“... he claps their ends together in quick succession, and by so doing produces rhythmic clanks to suit the style of any dance or the time of any song.”
Come here! Maintaining the erect position, he throws both hands upwards, to above a shoulder on one side, then sweeps them (extended) in front of his body to well behind it on the opposite side, at the same time bending his body forwards from the hips.
I am coming to you. The person places his hands upon his chest, and throws them towards the stranger.