The Australian aboriginal

by Herbert Basedow

2. Old Yantowannta man, showing peculiar method of wearing the beard.

When, therefore, we consider the likely significance of fair-haired aborigines, from an anthropological standpoint, we cannot ignore the claims of atavism. Noticing the phenomenon so abundantly developed, as it has been our good fortune recently to record, one is inclined to behold in it a primitive feature, which was originally typical of the ancestral hordes from whom the aboriginal Australian has sprung. This assumption is strengthened by the light colour of the lanugo regularly observed in the children.

The question arises whether the dark colour of the Australian’s skin (and hair) is entirely a secondary development due to climatic influences. The superficial nature of the pigmentation in the aboriginal’s skin is in support of such reasoning. It is known that the hair of some Arctic explorers, after a protracted sojourn in the frigid zones, has turned from dark to fair; and the same has been reported of alpine guides. We shall see presently that there is evidence of great antiquity of man in Australia; his occupation of the land dating back in all probability to the early Tertiary period. Geology teaches us that the climate has fluctuated considerably since and before that time. Consequently, it is quite within reason to assume that, in the earlier days of his racial existence, there may have been no need for any considerable accumulation of pigment cells within his skin, as a means of safeguarding his system against a sun, anything like so severe as is nowadays reigning over Australia. From later Tertiary times onwards, however, the climate of central and northern Australia has been continuously hot or tropical.

We are further strengthened in our theory by the fact that the hair of the Tasmanians is known to have been generally lighter in colour than that of the Australians. Sydney Hickson even described the Tasmanian hair as light golden brown in colour. Tasmania has, we know, since the later Tertiary at all events, enjoyed a decidedly colder climate than Australia proper.

One point remains unexplained; namely, why the occurrence of light-coloured hair among Australian children should be geographically restricted. Apart from the tribal groups in central Australia, which I have mentioned, I know of no other record except one by Professor Klaatsch from a coastal district in Queensland.

The hair of an aboriginal turns grey at a riper old age than is the case of the European’s. It seems, moreover, that the hair of the women retains its colour longer than that of the men.

Baldness is comparatively rare among the aborigines; only a limited number of cases have come before the writer’s personal notice.

The old Arunndta men are very particular about their appearance. When one is stricken with baldness, he constructs a pad, resembling a skull cap, out of emu feathers, which he ties on top of his head with human hair-string and wears regularly to hide the bareness of his scalp. He refers to this feather-wig as “memba.” Aluridja men adopt a similar fashion, but call the article “lorngai” ([Plate VIII]).

The men all over Australia, as a rule, can produce quite comely beards, but the methods they adopt of dressing them vary according to locality. In the River Murray and other southern districts, long square full-beards were the vogue. The Yantowannta and other tribesmen of the Cooper’s Creek and Lake Eyre region turn the point of the beard back upon itself into a loop, and, by winding fur-string around it, keep it fixed in that fashion ([Plate VII], 2). North of the MacDonnell Ranges, and on some of the islands off Arnhem Land, the older men keep the upper lip clean by pulling out the hairs one by one. Along the north coast, from the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Buccaneer Archipelago, the men over a certain age are allowed to singe off, or shave with a sharp chip of stone or shell, the entire beard including the upper lip. The women of the King Sound tribes are required to help the men remove the hairs; a man will lie for hours, with his head upon his lubra’s lap, whilst she busies herself pulling the hairs from her husband’s chin. The old men of the Cambridge Gulf tribe twist each end of the moustache and surround it with a cylindrical layer of beeswax, from which the tips project on either side like the hairs of a paint brush. The beard is divided into two equal bundles of hairs, the ends of both of which are treated in the same way as the moustache. On some of the islands of the Buccaneer Archipelago, the men shave the upper portion of the moustache below the nose, leaving only a narrow fringe of hairs, immediately above the margin of the upper lip.