Adelaide:
F. W. PREECE AND SONS
1925
Registered by the Postmaster-General for
transmission through the post as a book.
Wholly set up and printed in Australia
at The Hassell Press, Adelaide.
TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER
ANNA CLARA HELENE BASEDOW
PREFACE
For some years past it had been my intention to write a progressive series of treatises on the Australian aboriginal, embodying observations as they were being made. As time wore on, however, my procrastination amassed so great a fund and so great a variety of notes that my original plan became impossible. The delay was not altogether through any fault of mine, but through a run of fortunate happenings which allowed me to spend the better part of every year in the great unbounded spaces of central and northern Australia, to live among the uncontaminated tribes, and to study Australian anthropology at the fountain head. It was through my repeated and prolonged absences from the city (and civilization in general) that I could not attend to the publication of any lengthy scientific papers.