For the whole of Australia the number is under half a million. Around Melbourne and Sydney the population is extinct. At Port Jackson there were but one male and three females left. And the old Brisbane tribe, which once numbered 1,000, is now nearly extinct. The Tasmanian race is extinct. And so the original inhabitants of this immense country will soon cease to be known. In the north they are a finer race; but they are likewise doomed to perish by European vices and encroachment. Yet these men have made excellent sailors, good policemen, and stockmen, and recently they were conveyed home to England as first-rate cricket-players. Can they want intelligence?
They seem very like the Gipsy race—prone to wander, therefore hard to domesticate. This arises probably from their having to seek their food over a widely scattered area.
Sir G. Grey’s party met with native huts in considerable villages of a more remarkable construction than those of South Australia, being very nicely plastered on the outside with clay and clods of turf; there were also well marked roads, sunken wells, and extensive warren grounds, certainly indicative of some advance in civilization.
The most singular tribe Mitchell met with was what he termed the spitting tribe. These savages waived boughs violently over their heads, spat at the travellers, and threw dust with their toes, and forming into a circle, shouting, jumping, spitting, and throwing up dust, sang war songs with the most hideous gestures; their faces seemed all eyes and teeth.
The Encounter tribe is remarkable for daring. In one case, where the natives were pursued by two police, the blackfellows rushed on the troopers, and knocked one down, and he was only rescued by the arrival of the other trooper, whom the blackfellows also attacked, but were captured.
The sealers on the islands had stolen three women, wives of the blacks. After a short time, two escaped in a miserable canoe; the third attempted with her child to swim, but was drowned.
The natives have suffered much from the whites. There are now three classes of the natives—the old blacks, who hold fast to the customs of the tribes; the natives who are inoculated with the worst vices of the Europeans, being drunkards, gamblers, and utterly lawless; and lastly, the native Christians, yearly increasing in numbers. The tendency of Christian civilization, when adopted, is to make them more vigorous and long-lived.
The country is divided into tribal possessions, which none can intrude upon, so that the tribes are confined within a space of country so small that food often fails.
The tribes are jealous of any invasion of territory. This accounts for divisions of districts, as well as a variety of feature, texture of hair, &c., the latter being sometimes, but rarely, found to be woolly in Tasmania. Long hair is generally met with, but in the interior whole tribes are found entirely destitute of the same, while others are remarkable for being very hairy, except on the palms of their hands and the soles of their feet, and a small space round the eyes; these last are remarkable for strength and stature. Some have frizzled hair like the Papuans, and others have hair over their shoulders like Maccabars, while their beards are as different as the hair of their heads; the colour of the skin varies from black to copper colour, and again to almost white. Their features also differ; the Jewish, Celtic, and Teutonic type are recognizable, from which the stockmen nick-name them Paddy, Sawney, John Bull. They make good seamen, stockmen, and policemen. The aborigines are not Papuans, but are probably cave-dwellers; having no fixed habitation or residence, they depend entirely upon the natural productions of the soil, game, and fish.
The formation of their skulls is sometimes low, but in many instances large and equal to the average of Europeans. The theory of their inferiority is not strictly supported; few persons who have had opportunity of judging will admit this inferiority of intelligence; it needs only cultivation.