The islands of Torres Strait, even when they lie nearest to the coast of Australia, are not Australian, but Papuan, so that the following extracts from the “Voyage of the Fly” apply to a population allied to one under notice—allied, but not identical.
In Darnley Island the natives “were fine, active, well-made fellows, rather above the middle height, of a dark brown or chocolate colour. They had frequently almost handsome faces, aquiline noses, rather broad about the nostril, well-shaped heads, and many had a singularly Jewish cast of features. The hair was frizzled, and dressed into long pipe-like ringlets, smeared sometimes with ochre, sometimes left of its natural black colour; others had wigs not to be distinguished from the natural hair, till closely examined. The septum narium was bored, but there was seldom anything worn in it. Most of their ears were pierced all round with small holes, in which pieces of grass were stuck, and in many the lobe was torn and hanging down to the shoulder. Their only scars were the faint oval marks on the shoulder. The hair of their bodies and limbs grew in small tufts, giving the skin a slightly woolly appearance. They were entirely naked, but frequently wore ornaments made of mother-of-pearl shells, either circular or crescent-shaped, hanging round their necks. Occasionally, also, we saw a part of a large shell, apparently a cassis, cut into a projecting shield-shape, worn in front of the groin. The women wore a petticoat round the waist, reaching nearly to the knees, formed of strips of leaves sewn on to a girdle. These formed a very efficient covering, as one or two were worn over each other. The grown-up woman’s petticoat, or nessoor, was formed, we afterwards found, of the inside part of the large leaves of a bulbous-rooted plant, called by them teggaer, of which, each strip was an inch broad. The girl’s nessoor was made of much narrower strips from the inside of the leaf of the plantain, which they called cabbow.
“The younger women were often gracefully formed, with pleasing expressions of countenance, though not what we should consider handsome features. The girls had their hair rather long, but the women had almost all their hair cut short, with a bushy ridge over the top, to which they, singularly enough, gave the same name as to pieces of tortoise-shells, namely, kaisu. Many of the elder women had their heads shaved quite smoothly, and we never saw a woman wearing a wig, or with the long ringlets of the men. At our first landing, all the younger women and girls kept in the back-ground, or hid themselves in the bush. On strolling to the back of the huts, we found a small native path, along which we went a short distance till we came to a rude fence in front of a plantain-ground, where the men objected to our going further, and we heard the voices of the women among the trees beyond.
“There were four huts at this spot, all bee-hive shaped, sixteen feet in diameter, and as much in height. They stood in small court-yards, partially surrounded by fences formed of poles of bamboo, stuck upright in the ground, close together, and connected by horizontal rails, to which they were tied by withies. Inside the huts were small platforms covered with mats, apparently bed-places; and over head were hung up bows and arrows, clubs, calabashes, rolls of matting, and bundles apparently containing bones, which they did not like our examining. Outside the huts were one or two small open sheds, consisting merely of a raised flat roof, to sit under in the shade, and a grove of very fine cocoa-nut trees surrounded the houses.”
The arms of the natives were the bow and arrow, and in holding the former, especial care was taken that the part of the wood which was uppermost as the tree grew, should be uppermost when used as a weapon. Rough imitations of the human figure were common; but whether they served as idols or not was uncertain. The use of tobacco was general. On the part of the females, the reserve and decorum of manner formed a striking contrast with the very different habits of the Polynesians.
B. The Australians.—These are taken from life; two natives of the parts about Cape York having been taken up in an English vessel and brought with it to England. They passed a fortnight under the same roof with Mr. Thomson, and were well observed by both the artists engaged on the figures, and the present writer. The thinness of the legs is by no means exaggerated. It is just what the plates of Dr. Prichard’s “Varieties of Man” make it. On the other hand, the chest was well developed, and the arms comparatively—though only comparatively—strong. They told the story of their being on board the ship that brought them over, in dumb show, but they told it in a way that the most consummate professional actor might admire. But this was about all the talent they showed.
They ran neither faster nor slower than the Englishman they came in contact with; but swam as adepts. By no means insensible to such kindnesses as they received, they evinced quite as much kindness to their English house-mates as they did to one another. So silent, indeed, were they, that until we took a vocabulary of their language, we thought that they belonged to two different tribes who had carried their hostility with them across the Pacific, and nourished it in Sydenham. Smoking, or rather swallowing smoke, was their chief delight.
Tom, the livelier and less saturnine of the two, has a throwing-stick in his hand, which he is about to project.
In the group of two he re-appears. When Dick, the gloomier, had a headache, Tom could scarcely be withheld from scarifying his temples with such pieces of glass or flint as he could pick up.
Dick and Tom are Northern Australians—Northern Australians from the parts about Cape York.