Here then we have the idea of the doll, simple though it be. But after all, simplicity in method, so far as the training of children is concerned, is perhaps the readiest means of stimulating the imitative, and with it the creative, force which Nature has endowed them with.
The doll is usually just a plain stick or stone, with perhaps some distinguishing feature upon it, like a knob at one end which represents the head. Occasionally it is painted with red ochre. Dr. W. E. Roth found that on the Tully River in Queensland a forked stick is chosen so as to permit the child fixing it on its neck like a mother carrying her baby, with its lower limbs dangling over the shoulders.
Imaginary fireless cooking is also a pastime the little girls never tire of. A shallow hole is scooped, into which a few handfuls of cold ashes are thrown; this represents the fireplace. Upon the ashes is laid a pebble, a leaf, or any other article which they make up their minds to “cook.” Having covered it with sand in the orthodox way, the girls sit and talk, whilst they make themselves believe the dish is in course of preparation. They invite each other to the prospective feast, each explaining what she is cooking; one might have a wallaby, another a lizard, and still another a yam.
Quite apart from accompanying their mothers on the regular hunting expeditions, the little boys often go out alone. They carry toy weapons, with which they say they are going to slay a kangaroo or anything else happening to come their way. In the Fitzroy River district the young hunters collect, or cut out of a gum-tree butt, several pieces of bark, dry or fresh, and shy these into the crown of a boabab (Brachychiton Gregorii), hoping to fell a nut or two. If they are successful, they proudly return to camp with their spoil and obtain permission to roast it at the fireside. The small bark missiles are looked upon by the boys as quite equivalent to the “kaili” (boomerangs) of their fathers; and there is no doubt they can throw them with greater skill. I have seen the little fellows stalk a flock of foraging cockatoo and, when within range, fling several of the toy weapons into the birds as they are rising; invariably one or two birds are brought to fall.
PLATE XI
Rocking a child to sleep.
“On Sunday Island the bark food-carrier, there known as “oladda,” is used as a cradle; one might often see a busy mother, attending to duties which occupy her hands, putting her child to sleep by simultaneously rocking the receptacle containing it with her foot.”
The trimmed stalks of bullrushes and reeds make excellent toy spears, which are thrown with the heavier end pointing forwards and the thinner end poised against the index finger of the right hand. With these “weapons” the lads have both mock fights and mock hunts. In the latter case, one or two of their number act the part of either a hopping kangaroo or a strutting emu and, by clever movements of the body, endeavour to evade the weapons of the hunting gang.