In the slow process of time they drove them into the most southerly corner of Australia, just as the Saxons drove the Celts into Cornwall and the Welsh hills. Even if this Dravidian invasion is put subsequent to the Bass Strait forming, even if one allows the probability of much crossing between the two races at first, in time the hostilities would be renewed. With their earliest settlements on the north-north-west coasts, the Dravidians would probably tend to spread out north, north-east and east, and a southerly line of retreat would be the most natural one for the Papuans.[3] When at last they were driven to the Strait they would drift over on rafts or in clumsy shallops; being thereafter left in peace to concentrate their race, then possibly only in an approximately pure state, in the island to which the Dravidians would not take the trouble to follow them, and where they would have centuries in which once more to fix their racial type and emphasize over again those differences, perhaps temporarily marred by crossing, which were found to exist on the arrival of the Whites.
This Indo-Aryan origin for the Australian blackfellows is borne out by their physique. In spite of their savagery they are admitted by those who have studied them to be far removed from the low or Simian type of man. Dr Charles Pickering (1805-1878), who studied the Australians on the spot, writes: “Strange as it may appear, I would refer to an Australian as the finest model of the human proportions I have ever met; in muscular development combining perfect symmetry, activity and strength, while his head might have compared with the antique bust of a philosopher.” Huxley concluded, from descriptions, that “the Deccan tribes are indistinguishable from the Australian races.” Sir W.W. Hunter states that the Dravidian tribes were driven southwards in Hindustan, and that the grammatical relations of their dialects are “expressed by suffixes,” which is true as to the Australian languages. He states that Bishop Caldwell,[4] whom he calls “the great missionary scholar of the Dravidian tongue,” showed that the south and western Australian tribes use almost the same words for “I, thou, he, we, you, as the Dravidian fishermen on the Madras coast.” When in addition to all this it is found that physically the Dravidians resemble the Australians; that the boomerang is known among the wild tribes of the Deccan alone (with the doubtful exception of ancient Egypt) of all parts of the world except Australia, and that the Australian canoes are like those of the Dravidian coast tribes, it seems reasonable enough to assume that the Australian natives are Dravidians, exiled in remote times from Hindustan, though when their migration took place and how they traversed the Indian Ocean must remain questions to which, by their very nature, there can be no satisfactory answer.
The low stage of culture of the Australians when they reached their new home is thus accounted for, but their stagnation is remarkable, because they must have been frequently in contact with more civilized peoples. In the north of Australia there are traces of Malay and Papuan blood. That a far more advanced race had at one time a settlement on the north-west coast is indicated by the cave-paintings and sculptures discovered by Sir George Grey. In caves of the valley of the Glenelg river, north-west Australia, about 60 m. inland and 20 m. south of Prince Regent’s river, are representations of human heads and bodies, apparently of females clothed to the armpits, but all the faces are without any indication of mouths. The heads are surrounded with a kind of head-dress or halo and one wears a necklace. They are drawn in red, blue and yellow. The figures are almost life-size. Rough sculptures, too, were found, and two large square mounds formed of loose stones, and yet perfect parallelograms in outline, placed due east and west. In the same district Sir George Grey noticed among the blackfellows people he describes as “almost white.” On the Gascoyne river, too, were seen natives of an olive colour, quite good-looking; and in the neighbourhood of Sydney rock-carvings have been also found. All this points to a temporary occupation by a race at a far higher stage of culture than any known Australians, who were certainly never capable of executing even the crude works of art described.
Physically the typical Australian is the equal of the average European in height, but is inferior in muscular development, the legs and arms being of a leanness which is often emphasized by an abnormal corpulence. The bones Physique. are delicately formed, and there is the lack of calf usual in black races. The skull is abnormally thick and the cerebral capacity small. The head is long and somewhat narrow, the forehead broad and receding, with overhanging brows, the eyes sunken, large and black, the nose thick and very broad at the nostrils. The mouth is large and the lips thick but not protuberant. The teeth are large, white and strong. In old age they appear much ground down; particularly is this the case with women, who chew the different kinds of fibres, of which they make nets and bags. The lower jaw is heavy; the cheekbones somewhat high, and the chin small and receding. The neck is thicker and shorter than that of most Europeans. The colour of the skin is a deep copper or chocolate, never sooty black. When born, the Australian baby is of a much lighter colour than its parents and remains so for about a week. The hair is long, black or very dark auburn, wavy and sometimes curly, but never woolly, and the men have luxuriant beards and whiskers, often of an auburn tint, while the whole body inclines to hairiness. On the Balonne river, Queensland, Baron Mikluho Maclay found a group of hairless natives. The head hair is usually matted with grease and dirt, but when clean is fine and glossy. The skin gives out an objectionable odour, owing to the habit of anointing the body with fish-oils, but the true fetor of the negro is lacking in the Australian. The voices of the blackfellows are musical. Their mental faculties, though inferior to those of the Polynesian race, are not contemptible. They have much acuteness of perception for the relations of individual objects, but little power of generalization. No word exists in their language for such general terms as tree, bird or fish; yet they have invented a name for every species of vegetable and animal they know. The grammatical structure of some north Australian languages has a considerable degree of refinement. The verb presents a variety of conjugations, expressing nearly all the moods and tenses of the Greek. There is a dual, as well as a plural form in the declension of verbs, nouns, pronouns and adjectives. The distinction of genders is not marked, except in proper names of men and women. All parts of speech, except adverbs, are declined by terminational inflections. There are words for the elementary numbers, one, two, three; but “four” is usually expressed by “two-two.” They have no idea of decimals. The number and diversity of separate languages is bewildering.
In disposition the Australians are a bright, laughter-loving folk, but they are treacherous, untruthful and hold human life cheaply. They have no great physical courage. They are mentally in the condition of children. None of Character. them has an idea of what the West calls morality, except the simple one of right or wrong arising out of property. A wife will be beaten without mercy for unfaithfulness to her husband, but the same wife will have had to submit to the first-night promiscuity, a widespread revel which Roth shows is a regular custom in north-west-central Queensland. A husband claims his wife as his absolute property, but he has no scruple in handing her over for a time to another man. There is, however, no proof that anything like community of women or unlimited promiscuity exists anywhere. It would be wrong, however, to conclude that moral considerations have led up to this state of things. Of sexual morality, in the everyday sense of the word, there is none. In his treatment of women the aboriginal may be ranked lower than even the Fuegians. Yet the Australian is capable of strong affections, and the blind (of whom there have always been a great number) are cared for, and are often the best fed in a tribe.
The Australians when first discovered were found to be living in almost a prehistoric simplicity. Their food was the meat they killed in the chase, or seeds and roots, grubs or reptiles. They never, in any situation, Manners. cultivated the soil for any kind of food-crop. They never reared any kind of cattle, or kept any domesticated animal except the dog, which probably came over with them in their canoes. They nowhere built permanent dwellings, but contented themselves with mere hovels for temporary shelter. They neither manufactured nor possessed any chattels beyond such articles of clothing, weapons, ornaments and utensils as they might carry on their persons, or in the family store-bag for daily use. In most districts both sexes are entirely nude. Sometimes in the south during the cold season they wear a cloak of skin or matting, fastened with a skewer, but open on the right-hand side.
When going through the bush they sometimes wear an apron of skins, for protection merely. No headgear is worn, except sometimes a net to confine the hair, a bunch of feathers, or the tails of small animals. The breast or back, of both sexes, is usually tattooed, or rather, scored with rows of hideous raised scars, produced by deep gashes made at puberty. Their dwellings for the most part are either bowers, formed of the branches of trees, or hovels of piled logs, loosely covered with grass or bark, which they can erect in an hour, wherever they encamp. But some huts of a more substantial form were seen by Captain Matthew Flinders on the south-east coast in 1799, and by Captain King and Sir T. Mitchell on the north-east, where they no longer appear. The ingenuity of the race is mostly exhibited in the manufacture of their weapons of warfare and the chase. While the use of the bow and arrow does not seem to have occurred to them, the spear and axe are in general use, commonly made of hard-wood; the hatchets of stone, and the javelins pointed with stone or bone. The characteristic weapon of the Australian is the boomerang (q.v.). Their nets, made by women, either of the tendons of animals or the fibres of plants, will catch and hold the kangaroo or the emu, or the very large fish of Australian rivers. Canoes of bent bark, for the inland waters, are hastily prepared at need; but the inlets and straits of the north-eastern sea-coast are navigated by larger canoes and rafts of a better construction. As to food, they are omnivorous. In central Queensland and elsewhere, snakes, both venomous and harmless, are eaten, the head being first carefully smashed to pulp with a stone.
The tribal organization of the Australians was based on that of the family. There were no hereditary or formally elected chiefs, nor was there any vestige of monarchy. The affairs of a tribe were ruled by a council of men past Tribal organization. middle age. Each tribe occupied a recognized territory, averaging perhaps a dozen square miles, and used a common dialect. This district was subdivided between the chief heads of families. Each family, or family group, had a dual organization which has been termed (1) the Social, (2) the Local. The first was matriarchal, inheritance being reckoned through the mother. No territorial association was needed. All belonged to the same totem or totemic class, and might be scattered throughout the tribe, though subject to the same marriage laws. The second was patriarchal and of a strictly territorial nature. A family or group of families had the same hunting-ground, which was seldom changed, and descended through the males. Thus, the sons inherited their fathers’ hunting-ground, but bore their mothers’ name and therewith the right to certain women for wives. The Social or matriarchal took precedence of the Local or patriarchal organization. In many cases it arranged the assemblies and ceremonial of the tribe; it regulated marriage, descent and relationship; it ordered blood feuds, it prescribed the rites of hospitality and so on. Nevertheless the Local side of tribal life in time tended to overwhelm the Social and to organize the tribe irrespective of matriarchy, and inclined towards hereditary chieftainship.
The most intricate and stringent rules existed as to marriage within and without the totemic inter-marrying classes. There is said to be but one exception to the rule that marriage must be contracted outside the totem name. This exception was discovered by Messrs Spencer and Gillen among the Arunta of central Australia, some allied septs, and their nearest neighbours to the north, the Kaitish. This tribe may legally marry within the totem, but always avoids such unions. Even in casual amours these class laws were invariably observed, and the young man or woman who defied them was punished, he with death, she with spearing or beating. At the death of a man, his widows passed to his brother of the same totem class. Such a system gave to the elder men of a tribe a predominant position, and generally respect was shown to the aged. Laws and penalties in protection of property were enforced by the tribe. Thus, among some tribes of Western Australia the penalty for abducting another’s wife was to stand with leg extended while each male of the tribe stuck his spear into it. Laws, however, did not protect the women, who were the mere chattels of their lords. Stringent rules, too, governed the food of women and the youth of both sexes, and it was only after initiation that boys were allowed to eat of all the game the forest provided. In every case of death from disease or unknown causes sorcery was suspected and an inquest held, at which the corpse was asked by each relative in succession the name of the murderer. This formality having been gone through, the flight of the first bird which passed over the body was watched, the direction being regarded as that in which the sorcerer must be sought. Sometimes the nearest relative sleeps with his head on the corpse, in the belief that he will dream of the murderer. The most sacred duty an Australian had to perform was the avenging of the death of a kinsman, and he was the object of constant taunts and insults till he had done so. Cannibalism was almost universal, either in the case of enemies killed in battle or when animal food was scarce. In the Luritcha tribe it was customary when a child was in weak health to kill a younger and healthy one and feed the weakling on its flesh. Cannibalism seems also to have sometimes been in the nature of a funeral observance, in honour of the deceased, of whom the relatives reverently ate portions.
They had no special forms of religious worship, and no idols. The evidence on the question of whether they believed in a Supreme Being is very contradictory. Messrs Spencer and Gillen appear to think that such rudimentary idea Religion. of an All-Father as has, it is thought, been detected among the blackfellows is an exotic growth fostered by contact with missionaries. A.W. Howitt and Dr Roth appear to have satisfied themselves of a belief, common to most tribes, in a mythic being (he has different names in different tribes) having some of the attributes of a Supreme Deity. But Mr Howitt finds in this being “no trace of a divine nature, though under favourable conditions the beliefs might have developed into an actual religion.” Other authorities suggest that it is going much too far to deny the existence of religion altogether, and instance as proof of the divinity of the supra-normal anthropomorphic beings of the Baiame class, the fact that the Yuin and cognate tribes dance around the image of Daramulun (their equivalent of Baiame) and the medicine men “invocate his name.” A good deal perhaps depends on each observer’s view of what religion really is. The Australians believed in spirits, generally of an evil nature, and had vague notions of an after-life. The only idea of a god known to be entertained by them seems to be that of the Euahlayi and Kamilaori tribe, Baiame, a gigantic old man lying asleep for ages, with his head resting on his arm, which is deep in the sand. He is expected one day to awake and eat up the world. Researches go to show that Baiame has his counterpart in other tribes, the myth varying greatly in detail. But the Australians are distinguished by possessing elaborate initiatory ceremonies. Circumcision of one or two kinds was usual in the north and south, but not in Western Australia or on the Murray river. In South Australia boys had to undergo three stages of initiation in a place which women were forbidden to approach. At about ten they were covered with blood from head to foot, several elder men bleeding themselves for the purpose. At about twelve or fourteen circumcision took place and (or sometimes as an alternative on the east coast) a front tooth was knocked out, to the accompaniment of the booming of the bullroarer (q.v.). At the age of puberty the lad was tattooed or scarred with gashes cut in back, shoulders, arms and chest, and the septum of the nose was pierced. The gashes varied in patterns for the different tribes. Girls, too, were scarred at puberty and had teeth knocked out, &c. The ceremonies—known to the Whites under the native generic term for initiatory rites, Bora,—were much the same throughout Australia. Polygamy was rare, due possibly to the scarcity of women.[5] Infanticide was universally recognized. The mode of disposing of the dead varied. Among some tribes a circular grave was dug and the body placed in it with its face towards the east, and a high mound covered with bark or thatch raised over it. In New South Wales the body is often burned and the ashes buried. On the Lower Murray the body is placed on a platform of sticks and left to decay. Young children are often not buried for months, but are carried about by their mothers. At the funeral of men there is much mourning, the female relatives cutting or tearing their hair off and plastering their faces with clay, but for women no public ceremonies took place.