The Aborigines of Australia

by R.N. Richard Sadleir

An aboriginal and woman had a dairy station at Monaro, were married at church, and conducted their station like any Europeans.

Their power of ridicule is very great. Sir George Grey’s party having reached a friendly tribe, who supplied them with frogs and turtles, one of them, named Imbat, enjoyed himself at the expense of Sir George Grey.

“What for do you, who have plenty to eat and much money, walk so far away in the bush? You are thin, your shanks are long, your belly small, you had plenty to eat at home, why did you not stop there?”

Sir G. Grey replied, being somewhat mortified, “You comprehend nothing; you know nothing.”

“I know nothing? I know how to keep myself fat. The young women look at me and say, ‘Imbat is very handsome, he is fat.’ They look at you, and say, ‘He is not good, long legs:’ What do you know, where is your fat, what for do you know so much, if you can’t keep fat? I know how to keep at home, and not walk too far in the bush; where is your fat?” “You know how to talk;—long tongue,” was my reply, upon which, forgetting his anger, he burst into a roar of laughter, and saying, “I know how to make you fat,” began stuffing me with frogs and by-yu nuts.

There was something more practical here than irony. The value of religion under the trying circumstances of a forlorn hope in this expedition is acknowledged by Sir G. Grey:⁠—“I feel assured that but for the support I derived from prayer and frequent perusals and meditation of the Scriptures, I should never have been able to have borne myself in such a manner as to have maintained discipline and confidence among the rest of the party, nor in my sufferings did I ever lose the consolation derived from the firm reliance upon the goodness of Providence. It is only those who go forth into perils and dangers, where human foresight and strength can little avail, find themselves day after day protected by an unseen influence, and ever and anon snatched from the jaws of destruction by a power which is not of this world, who can at all estimate the knowledge of one’s weakness and littleness, and the firm reliance and trust upon the goodness of the Creator which the human heart is capable of feeling.”

When seeking to determine what they were to do to extricate themselves from their difficulties, he says, “He then strengthened his mind by reading a few chapters in the Bible, and walked on.”

Those who have read of Sir J. Franklin’s early explorations down the Copper-mine River, and his return with his party, will see how this party, in the midst of ice and snow and starvation, were supported by religion, the Bible being the staff of their strength, and that they were the objects of God’s care, buoyed them up under unheard-of difficulties appalling to human nature. “What is man alone in creation without God?”

They are very expert in throwing the spear, at which they constantly practise. They have a game at ball, which gives occasion for much wrestling and activity; besides this, they have wrestling matches for bunches of feathers.

There are many kinds of corroborees. All have the song and the dance; both are at times very libidinous, especially the dance of the women. The war dances are conducted by some hundreds of men in a measured tramp, and in a very excited state of mind. They make up their song out of some incident or circumstance they may have seen. The effect is very imposing: the men in a state of nudity; their bodies striped in white, and their heads fancifully adorned; the fires lighting up the night and casting their glare around the forest; the stately trees spreading their shadows; the women seated and drumming rude music from tight-rolled skins. The activity of the dancers and the strange noises, sounds, and imitating calls altogether present a wild, unearthly, and apparently demoniacal scene. A resident on the Macleay River gives the following sketch of this ceremony:⁠—“From the repugnance which the blacks at the Macleay displayed on my looking at their performance, and their angry refusal to allow me to see the main part of the ceremony, I am unable to give a regular account of it, having only been able to obtain occasional glimpses. After many preliminary grotesque mummeries had been performed, the doctors or priests of the tribe took each a boy, and held him for some time with his head downwards near the fire. Afterwards, with great solemnity, they were invested with the opossum belt; and at considerable intervals, between each presentation, they were given the nulla-nulla, the boomerang, the spear, &c. Whilst these arms were being conferred upon them the other natives performed a sham fight, and pretended to hunt the pademelon, spear fish, and imitate various other occupations, in which the weapons, lately presented to the youth, would be of service. As their ceremonies occupied a fortnight or more before they were concluded, many other ridiculous scenes were undoubtedly enacted, and during all this time the women did not dare to approach the performers. Each man was also provided with a singular instrument, formed with a piece of hollowed wood fastened to a long piece of flax string; by whirling this rapidly round their heads a loud shrill noise was produced, and the blacks seemed to attach a great degree of mystic importance to the sound of this instrument, for they told me that if a woman heard it she would die. The conclusion of this ceremony was a grand dance of a peculiar character, in which the boys join, and which the women are allowed to see. This dance is performed with much more solemnity than the ordinary corroborees. The Yarra-hapinni tribe, which I saw execute this dance near the Clybucca Creek, were so elaborately painted with white for the occasion that even their very toes and fingers were carefully and regularly coloured with concentric rings, whilst their hair was drawn up in a close knot, and stuck all over with the snowy down of the white cockatoo, which gave them the appearance of being decorated with white wings. In this dance the performers arranged themselves in the form of a semicircle, and grasping the ends of their boomerangs, which are also painted with great minuteness and regularity, they swayed their bodies rapidly from right to left, displaying a degree of flexibility in their limbs which might have created the envy of many a pantomimic artist. Each movement of their bodies to and fro was accompanied by a loud hiss, whilst a number of other natives, similarly painted, beat time with sticks, and kept up an incessant and obstreperous song. Every now and then the dancers would stop and rush, crowding together into a circle, raising their weapons with outstretched arms, and joining with frantic energy in the song. They would then be more composed, and walk backwards and forwards in couples, holding each other by the hand, until again roused by an elderly native to resume the dance. It was not until midnight that the noise ceased, which, every evening whilst the ceremonies lasted, might be heard at a distance of two or three miles.”