Peeps At Many Lands: Australia

s weapons-The Papuan tree-dwel

heat, oats, barley nor maize. It produced practically no edible fruit, excepting a few berries, and one or two nuts, the outer rind of which was eatable. There were no useful roots such as the potato, the turnip, or the yam, or the taro. The native animals were few and just barely eatable, the kangaroo, the koala (or native bear) being the principa

ple who are backward in civilization to be kept to a land which treats them too harshly; for then they never get a fair chance to progress in the scale of civilization. The people of the tropics and the people near the poles lagged behind in the r

atives in all Australia. And if the white man had not come, there probably would never have been any progress among the blacks. As they were then they had been for countless centuries, and in all likelihood would have remained for countless centuries more. They had never, like the Chinese, the Hindus, t

ey had not learned the wisdom and justice of treating the people they were supplanting fairly. The officials were, as a rule, kind enough; but some classes of the new population were of a bad type, an

m on a special reserve on Tasman Peninsula. That was to be the black man's part of the country, where no white people would be allowed. The help of the settlers was enlisted, and a great cordon was formed around the whole island, as if it were to be beaten for game. The cordon gradually closed in on Tasman Peninsula after some weeks of "beating" the for

ict, and the black race quickly perished. To-day there is not a single member of that rac

l of acts of cruelty in the back-blocks (as the far interior of Australia is called), but, so far as the Government can, it punishes the offenders. In several of the States there is an official known as the Protector of the Aborigines, and he has very wide powers to shield these poor blacks from the wickedness of others, and from their own weakness.

mmonwealth reported, in regard to

r knowledge of them, their laws, habits, customs, and language, has been the result of more or less spasmodic and intermittent effort on the part of enthusiasts either in private life or the public service. Strange to say, an enumeration of them has never been seriously undertaken in connection with any State census, though a record of the numbers who were in the employ of whites, or living in contiguity to the

would cast a missile a great distance. These were his weapons-rough spears, throwing-sticks, and clubs called nullahs, or waddys. (I am not sure that these latter are original native words. The blacks had a way of picking up white men's slang and adding it to their very limited vocabulary; thus the evil spirit is known among them as the "debbil-debbil.") Another weapon the aboriginal had, the boomerang, a curiously curved

for battle by painting themselves with red, yellow, and white clay in fantastic patterns. They would then hold war-dances in the presence of the enemy; that, and the exchange of dreadful threats, would often conclude a campaign. But sometimes the forces would actually come to blows, spears would be thrown, cl

f duelling was the exchange of blows from a nullah. One party would stand quietly whilst his antagonist hit him on the head with a club; then th

ry well by their lords: they had to do all the carrying when on the march. At mealtimes they would sit in a row behind the men. The game-a kangaroo, for instance-w

tructed by the natives to trap fish. So far as can be ascertained, the Australian native was rarely if ever a cannibal. His neighbours in the Pacific Ocean were generally cannibals. Perhaps the scanty population of

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on of a Good Spirit. Their idea of future happiness was, after they had come into contact with the whites: "Fall down black fellow, jump up white fellow." Such an idea of heaven was, of course, an acquired one. What was their orig

t Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" put crudely to fit in with Australian conditions. I may be quite wrong in this, but I think that most of the folk-stories coming from the natives are just their attempts to imitate white-man stories, and not original ideas of the

he will never allow it off his head. He quickly learns to smoke and to drink, and, when he comes into contact with the Chinese, to eat opium. He cannot be broken into any steady habits of industry, but where by wise kindness the black fellow has been kept from the vices of civilization he is a most engaging savage. Tall, thin, muscular,

of their own, very little to unlearn, and are docile enough. In some cases black children educated at the mission schools are turning out very well. But, on the other hand, there are many i

d to perish. Something can be done to prolong their life, to make it more pleasant; but they will n

apua, or New Guinea, as it was once called, is only a few miles from the north coast of Australia, its ra

ines. But their food came too easily to allow them to go very far forward. "Civilization is impossible where the banana grows," some observer has remarked. He meant that since the banana gave food without any culture o

e one another's districts and fight savage battles. The victors would eat the bodies of the vanquished, and carr

so far failed. So the condition of the natives is not very happy. They have lost the only form of exercise they cared for, and sloth, together with contact with

aid of a rope ladder and drawn the ladder up after him, he was fairly safe from molestation, for the long, smooth, branchless trunks of the palm-trees do not make them easy to scale. In time the Papuan learned the advantages of the tree-dwelling in marshy groun

not, as a rule, deck himself in any special garb, or go through public incantations, as do most savage medicine-men. But he hints and threatens, and lets inference take its course, till eventually he becomes a recognized power, feared and obeyed by all. Extortion, false swearing, quarrels and murders, and all manner of iniquity, follow in his train. No native but fears him, however complete the training and education of civilization. For the Papuan never thinks of death, plague, pestilence

tied him up with rattan ropes, and sank him in 20 feet of water against the morning. He argued, as he explained at his trial for murder, 'If this man is the genuine article, well and good, no harm done. If he is not-well, it's a good riddance!' On repairing to the spot next morning, an

tralian aboriginal, and he may be preserved in something near

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