The construction of a canoe in the neighbourhood of Cape York is still looked upon as a great undertaking, although the labour has been much lessened by the introduction of iron axes, which have completely superseded those of stone formerly in use. A tree of sufficient size free from limbs--usually a species of Bombax (silk-cotton tree) or Erythrina--is selected in the scrub, cut down, hollowed out where it falls, and dragged to the beach by means of long climbers used as ropes. The remaining requisites are now added; two stout poles, fourteen to twenty feet in length, are laid across the gunwale, and secured there from six to ten feet apart, and the projecting ends are secured by lashing and wooden pegs to a long float of light wood on each side, pointed, and slightly turned up at the ends. A platform or stage of small sticks laid across occupies the centre of the canoe, extending on each side, several feet beyond the gunwale, and having on the outside a sort of double fence of upright sticks used for stowing away weapons and other gear. The paddles are five feet long, with a narrow rounded blade, and are very clumsily made. The cable is made of twisted climbers--often the Flagellaria indica--and a large stone serves for an anchor.
When desirous of making sail, the first process is to set up in the bow two poles as masts, and on the weather side a longer and stouter one is laid across the gunwale, and projects outwards and backwards as an outrigger. These are further supported by stays and guys, and, together with another long pole forked at the end, serve as a frame to support the pressure of the sails, which are usually two in number, made of matting of pandanus leaves, and average four and a half feet in width and twelve in height. The sails have a slender pole on each side to which the matting is secured by small pegs; when set, they are put up on end side by side, travelling along the backstay by means of a cane grommet. When blowing fresh it is usual to keep a man standing on the temporary outrigger to counteract by his weight the inclination of the canoe to leeward. From the whole sail being placed in the bow these canoes make much leeway, but when going free may attain a maximum speed of seven or eight knots an hour. Except in smooth water they are very wet, and the bailer (a melon shell) is in constant requisition.
BOWS, ARROWS, SPEARS, THROWING-STICKS AND CLUBS.
The inhabitants of the mainland and Prince of Wales Islands use the spear and throwing-stick, but throughout the remainder of Torres Strait bows and arrows are the chief weapons. The bows, which are large and powerful, are made of split bamboo, and the arrows of a cane procured from New Guinea, afterwards headed with hard wood variously pointed and sometimes barbed. The Kowraregas obtain bows and arrows from their northern neighbours, and occasionally use them in warfare, but prefer the spears which are made by the blacks of the mainland. We saw three kinds of spear at Cape York; one is merely a sharpened stick used for striking fish, the two others, tipped and barbed with bone, are used in war. The principal spear (kalak or alka) measures about nine feet in length, two-thirds of which are made of she-oak or casuarina, hard and heavy, and the remaining third of a soft and very light wood; one end has a small hollow to receive the knob of the throwing-stick, and to the other the leg-bone of a kangaroo six inches long, sharpened at each end, is secured in such a manner as to furnish a sharp point to the spear and a long barb besides. Another spear, occasionally used in fighting, has three or four heads of wood each of which is tipped and barbed with a smaller bone than is used for the kalak.
The throwing-stick in use at Cape York extends down the North-East coast at least as far as Lizard Island; it differs from those in use in other parts of Australia in having the projecting knob for fitting into the end of the spear parallel with the plane of the stick and not at rightangles. It is made of casuarina wood, and is generally three feet in length, an inch and a quarter broad, and half an inch thick. At the end a double slip of melon shell, three and a half inches long, crossing diagonally, serves as a handle, and when used, the end rests against the palm of the right hand, the three last fingers grasp the stick, and the forefinger and thumb loosely retain the spear. With the aid of the powerful leverage of the throwing-stick a spear can be thrown to a distance varying according to its weight from 30 to 80 yards, and with considerable precision; still, if observed coming, it may easily be avoided.
The only other weapon which I have seen in Torres Strait is a peculiar kind of club procured from New Guinea, consisting of a quoit-like disk of hard stone (quartz, basalt, or serpentine) with a sharp edge, and a hole in the centre to receive one end of a long wooden handle.
The huts which the Kowraregas and Cape York people put up when the rains commence are usually dome-shaped, four to six feet high, constructed of an arched framework of flexible sticks, one end of each of which is stuck firmly in the ground, and over this sheets of tea-tree (Melaleuca) bark--and sometimes an additional thatch of grass--are placed until it is rendered perfectly watertight.
PETTICOATS AND FISHING GEAR.
Not only at Cape York but throughout Torres Strait the males use no clothing or covering of any kind. At Cape York and the Prince of Wales Islands grown up females usually wear a covering in front, consisting of a tuft of long grass, or flag (Philydrum lanuginosum) or split pandanus leaves, either hanging loosely or passed between the legs and tied to another behind; over this a short petticoat of fine shreds of pandanus leaf, the ends worked into a waistband, is sometimes put on, especially by the young girls, and when about to engage in dancing. This petticoat, varying only in the materials from which it is made, is in general use among the females of all the Torres Strait tribes except the Kowrarega, and much labour is often expended upon its construction. The large mats used as sails, also for sleeping under in wet weather, are made by the women from the fallen leaves of the pandanus--the common basket from the rush-like leaves of Xerotes banksii ? --and the water basket from the sheath of the leaf of the Seaforthia palm.
The food of these blacks varies with the season of the year, and the supply is irregular and often precarious. Shellfish and fish are alone obtainable all the year round--collecting the former is exclusively a female occupation, but fishing is chiefly practised by the men. Fish are either killed with a plain pointed spear, often merely a stick sharpened at the end, or are taken in deep water with the hook and line. Their hooks are made of a strip of tortoise-shell so much curved as to form three-fourths of a circle, but from their shape and the absence of a barb they cannot be so effective as those of European make: indeed these last were at Cape York preferred by the natives themselves. The line is neatly made from the tough fibres of the rattan, which are first scraped to the requisite degree of fineness with a sharp-edged Cyrena shell, then twisted and laid up in three strands.