EFFECTS OF THEIR ENTERPRISES.
Then comes a strange change over the unoccupied Overlander; he has brought with him every head of stock which he could muster, and in the course of a few days his last beast is disposed of; his establishment is broken up, he awakes some morning and finds himself a rich man, but he has no stock; he has so much money but no cattle. He no longer follows the long array of his stately herd and bleating flocks, his loaded drays and bearded stockmen, through the free wilderness; no longer regulates and watches their perilous course through the intricate ford of a deep river, or stands upon some solitary hill to reconnoitre the trackless country and select the line along which the motley assemblage is to pass. He is now an idle unoccupied gentleman, the inhabitant of a boarding-house, with no object in the world before him; but ere long the plans of fresh achievements and speculations are sketched out. You see a muster of bearded weather-beaten men, carrying short-handled whips. The Overlander enters the group, a short consultation takes place, and in a day or two more himself and his followers are under weigh for some district where he can purchase stock cheapest and make a good start for another market.
MAGNITUDE OF THEIR OPERATIONS.
The magnitude of the operations of the Overlanders would scarcely be credited; a whole fortune is risked, and in the wilderness: its safety depends upon good guidance; yet far from being intimidated by the thought the adventurers are only stimulated to a greater degree of activity. The stock of an Overlander is the capital which he has invested in a single speculation; and to give an idea of the amount of this I will show, at a moderate estimate, the value of a herd, the property of an Overlander who arrived in Adelaide in the month of March 1840 from the district of Illawarra, New South Wales.
HORNED CATTLE.
260 Cows, many broken in.
230 Bullocks, 3 1/2 years old and upwards.
190 Steers, 2 1/2 years old and upwards.
39 Steers, 1 1/2 years old and upwards.
70 Heifers, two to three years old.
32 Heifers, one to two years old.
9 Bulls.
5 Calves.
20 Working Bullocks, two shafters.
855 Total head of Horned Cattle.
HORSES.
22 Mares, all in foal, 3 to 5 years old.
5 do., 5 to 8 years old.
7 Fillies, do., 2 to 3 years old.
3 do., rising 3 years, not in foal.
5 do., rising 2 years, not in foal.
10 Saddle and Draught Horses.
5 Colts, rising 4 years old.
1 Colt, rising 3 years old.
1 Colt, rising 2 years old.
1 Blood Stallion.
1 Draught entire Horse.
1 Entire Pony.
62 Total number of Horses.
900 Fat Wethers.
AMOUNT OF STOCK VENTURES.
Now, striking a low average, the value in pounds of this herd of cattle, horses, and sheep, in South Australia, was:
Horned Stock 8,550.
Horses 3,720.
Wethers 1,575.
Total: 13,845 pounds.
But between this and an ordinary mercantile risk no parallel can be drawn. A merchant insures his cargo so that his total loss can but be a small portion of the whole. The Overlander cannot do this with his stock and runs a far greater proportionate risk. It must also be borne in mind that the statement of the herd, which I have above given, does not include all that started for South Australia, but only the survivors, who, after traversing so many hundred miles, reached in safety the destined mart.
INFLUX OF STOCK TO SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
When the Overlanders drive sheep alone, without horned stock or horses, the number of heads is much increased, as from 8000 to 12,000 sheep are brought over at one time. They are driven in separate flocks of about 1000 each, and these follow one another in regular succession. The value of a flock of 6000 sheep cannot be estimated under 10,500 pounds.
RAPID INCREASE OF WEALTH IN NEW SETTLEMENTS.
So much for the operations of single parties; but when once a road to a new market is opened numbers follow up the tracks of the first hardy adventurer, and the operations of the whole combined are not less startling in their magnitude than are those of enterprising individuals. From New South Wales into the province of South Australia the Overlanders introduced, in 1839:
4,200 Head of Horned Cattle,
130 Horses,
35,000 Sheep;
and within the three succeeding months of 1840, upwards of:
7,000 Head of Horned Cattle,
100 Horses,
25,000 Sheep;
making, in fifteen months, a total of:
11,200 Head of Horned Cattle,
230 Horses,
60,000 Sheep.
The value in pounds of the above stock being in the whole about:
Horned Cattle 112,000,
Horses 13,800,
Sheep 105,000,
Total: 230,800 pounds.
And this wonderful amount of stock was brought into a country which, three years before, only resounded to the war-cry of the naked savage; and the soil of which, hardened, baked, and unstirred for centuries, nursed not within its bosom seeds from which a plenteous harvest might spring, but, as if irritated by neglect and indifference, gave forth unwillingly only acid roots and scanty bulbs.
PROSPERITY CREATED BY THE OVERLANDER.
The first entrance of an Overlander into a district may be compared to the rising of the Nile upon the thirsty land of Egypt; then does the country bear fruit and the land give forth her increase, he enters the district silently, noiselessly, unexpectedly, but his influence is soon felt everywhere; merchant vessels can now obtain cargoes of wool, and no longer sail empty away. England receives raw materials, and in exchange are sent out luxuries and manufactured goods. New clearings are made by the farmer, who has now abundance of manure; the artisan plies useful trades, and ceases to labour in the place of beasts of draught or burden; hateful scurvy, the scourge of new colonies, is expelled, not by medicine, but by fresh meat, milk, and vegetables. But the worker of all this good is unmindful of it; he has bargained to get the highest price he can for his stock, and is already plotting new enterprises; he sought to serve himself, not others, and has accomplished both.
The first Overlander having entered a district nothing can check the tide that follows on. It is in vain for him to declare (perhaps really conscientiously) that he conceives the risk of loss of stock to be so great that none should undertake the journey; this is only ascribed to his cupidity and a desire to keep others out of the market; HE has done it, and why cannot more? This argument is irresistible, and adventurer after adventurer marches upon his track.
CONSEQUENCES OF HIS SUCCESS UPON OTHERS.
Now comes a hurrying into the new district of speculators from the old colonies: the fact of a road being found to it from the stock country is a guarantee that it will succeed, and it is in a new settlement that the largest profits are realized. These arrivals bring with them from the older colonies experience, capital, and extensive connexions; fresh sources of industry and speculation are at once opened up by them; all town-land and landed property to be purchased at a cheap rate they secure; money circulates from hand to hand, and an impetus is given, and a progress made, which must be seen to be credited.
OPENINGS TO WEALTH IN NEW COLONIES.
The tide of emigration coming in from the older colonies is a certain sign of rapid success; those who arrive from these places are men who have done well in the first country of their adoption; but to this they had repaired when it was thinly inhabited, when land was of very low value and to be procured near the capital; there they have realized largely, but it appears to them that nearly all the good things have now been picked up; property has attained such a value that it rises but slowly, indeed is almost stationary in price; and the country is so largely stocked that they are driven to establish their sheep-stations at such a distance from the sea coast that the expense of the transport of their wool thither greatly detracts from its value. Under these circumstances once again do they emigrate, to repeat in a new land the operations which have before yielded them so lucrative a return; and, strong in past experience, they smile at the errors committed by the younger settlers, from which they reap many advantages.
ITS EFFECTS UPON ALL CLASSES.
But time and intellect are all worth much more in Australia than they are in England, and everyone can realize upon his capital and speculate profitably upon his intelligence, activity, and strength; for all of these he gets paid, hence but few men are willing to follow professions. Clergymen too often turn farmers and speculators, even if they do not altogether throw aside their sacred character. Medical men but rarely pursue their practice, when such remunerating fields of enterprise are laid open to them; soldiers abandon their calling; and the government officers are all virtually farmers and stock-owners.
This is to be expected, from the character of man. In a new colony everything increases rapidly in worth--a landed estate which can be bought in the early stages of its existence at a mere nominal price grows yearly in value without a penny being expended upon it; stock increases in a geometrical ratio, at little or no cost, for there is plenty of land to pasture them upon. Nothing of this kind either does or can take place in England; and when the settler finds how changed his prospects are, and how new means of acquiring wealth are opened to him, he too often devotes his every thought and energy to the one object; and so far will this passion lead men that I have known an honourable member of council and leading magistrate in a colony take out a retail license, and add to his already vast wealth from the profits of a gin shop.
But as stock is that species of property from which the largest returns are realized, and that with the least labour, it is to this branch of industry that settlers generally direct their attention; indeed until plenty of stock is introduced into a new colony its success is wavering and uncertain, and its inhabitants are generally compelled to undergo a degree of poverty and privation which contrasts strangely with the affluence of the people occupying the more settled countries. The degree of care and attention which is bestowed upon the breeding of stock necessarily ensures both a constant supply of it and its rapid diffusion over all accessible portions of the continent.
It is extremely difficult to convey to a mind which has never contemplated the subject an idea of the rapid advance of stock stations over the continent of Australia; there is something about it which bears an almost fabulous character; and the same circumstance takes place with regard to the rise in the price of town and country lands. Those who have not witnessed such things can scarcely give credit to them. In Western Australia town land was bought for twenty-three pounds an acre in the month of December 1839; and in the month of February 1840, large importations of stock having taken place, the same land was sold for sixty pounds an acre. But in other colonies, where overland communication takes place, this would be regarded as a very small increase in price for a new colony; there are many instances in South Australia of people realizing, in less than two years, sums of money to the amount of from ten to twelve thousand pounds from the sale of town acres in the city of Adelaide.
RAPID SPREAD OF STOCK STATIONS.
To endeavour to give some idea of the rapid extension of stock stations over the face of the country I must begin by premising that farming stock somewhat more than double themselves in two years; or at the end of two years they occupy double the space of territory; at the end of four years, four times; at the end of six years, eight times; at the end of eight years, sixteen times; and thus, at the end of ten years, thirty-two times the space of country which was originally taken up by stock becomes occupied by civilized man.
Exactly in the same ratio as the amount of occupied territory increases so does the amount of wealth in the country advance, as well as the demand for labour; and the natural increase of population falling far short of this, and not supplying a sufficient number of persons to absorb the wealth which the country is capable of producing, a demand for emigration arises, and a stimulus to it is given by the ease with which wealth and comfort are acquired in the Australasian colonies.
COURSE OF THE OVERLANDERS THROUGH AUSTRALIA.
If the reader casts his eye upon a general map of Australia it will be an easy task to follow the march of stock for the last four years:
Port Phillip was occupied in 1836,
Portland Bay in 1835,
South Australia in December 1836.
COMMUNICATION BETWEEN SOUTHERN AND WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
The first step taken by the Overlanders was the connexion of Port Phillip with Sydney, and they thus, as it were, established a great base line from which their subsequent operations could be carried on; at this period they did not however bear the name of Overlanders, which was only given to them after Adelaide had been reached in 1838.
EARLY ENTERPRISES OF THE OVERLANDERS.
The Overlanders had hitherto been occupied in merely pushing their stock stations to different portions of the colony of New South Wales; but a new and fertile field for enterprise opened to them in the establishment of the colony of South Australia, which as before stated was in December 1836; and many an enterprising mind instantly turned thitherward with earnest longings which soon ripened into action. In November 1837, that is, in eleven months from the foundation of the new colony, several hardy adventurers had laid, matured, and commenced carrying into operation plans which some deemed insane when they heard of the amount of capital invested in so new an undertaking, but which were undertaken by the adventurers in full confidence in their own powers.
THEIR FIRST EXPEDITIONS TO ADELAIDE, AND TO THE WESTWARD OF PORT LINCOLN.
Two expeditions started almost at the same time for this new market. In February 1838 Mr. Hawdon moved from the Goulburn and Mr. Eyre from Port Phillip. In April 1838 Mr. Hawdon arrived in Adelaide and shortly afterwards was followed by Mr. Eyre, who had attempted to take a direct route from Port Phillip to Adelaide, but coming upon an impassable country he had been compelled to turn to the northward, and then to make it by the same route which Mr. Hawdon had pursued. Just eight years before this period a hardy party of explorers under Captain Sturt had first ventured in a whale-boat to descend a river traversing this unknown land. Rapidly had the fruits of this enterprise ripened to maturity; the river was now made a highway of commerce, a connecting link between two countries.
In the remaining portion of 1838 and in 1839 the energies of the Overlanders were fully employed in supplying South Australia with stock; and during this period several new and shorter lines of route were struck out, the last great improvement of this kind being made by the adventurous C. Bonney, Esquire, who connected Port Phillip with Adelaide by a direct road running nearly parallel to the coast, so that the portion of the continent of Australia which lies between Moreton Bay and Adelaide is now connected by a passable route.
During 1839 it was felt however that the markets of South Australia no longer afforded such large profits; but Port Lincoln was then occupied and a new country opened, to which cattle and sheep were conveyed across Spencer's Gulf. This for a time afforded some employment to the Overlanders; but their spirits were secretly chafed by the thought that the limits of their career were attained. Several expeditions to the westward of Port Lincoln were undertaken, and in August 1839 Mr. Eyre, still anxious to open a new market, pushed as far to the westward as Denial Bay; but the journey to King George's Sound seemed so vast an undertaking that although such a scheme was often contemplated the hazard and risk of property appeared, even to a daring Overlander, to be too great.
Yet although none ventured, many an eager heart turned that way, and many a thoughtful face lighted up when a promising plan was unfolded.
Whilst the Overlanders were thus speculating upon the possibility of connecting the Eastern and Western portions of Australia by one great line of communication, the new settlements of South Australia and Port Phillip were making such rapid advances in prosperity as almost exceed belief.
The settlements of Swan River and King George's Sound, which had now been established nearly ten years, were truly in a most miserable condition. So late as the month of September 1839, when I landed at King George's Sound to assume the situation of Government Resident there, the population had been in a state bordering upon want.
But in the lapse of years the mismanagement and other causes which had weighed down the settlers in Western Australia had been swept away; and in 1839 an ameliorated system began to be introduced, the energies and resources of the colony were allowed to unfold and develop themselves, and a period of colonial prosperity commenced which bids fair, if not again checked, to run as rapid and astonishing a career as it has done in South Australia and Port Phillip.
IMPORT STOCK TO WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
These changes were not unmarked by the Overlanders. Those symptoms of uneasiness which always precede new eras of events began to exhibit themselves at both ends of the proposed line of communication. My official situation enabled me greatly to forward these, and all persons who landed at the Sound on their passage to South Australia recognised the advantages to be derived from shipping stock to it from Adelaide, and thus avoiding the passage to Swan River round Cape Leeuwin; these persons carried numerous representations to this effect to some of the principal stock-proprietors of South Australia; and at the same time Dr. Harris, one of the oldest and most adventurous of the Swan River settlers, drove a flock of sheep overland from King George's Sound to the inland districts of the Swan River, thus demonstrating the feasibility of this part of the plan. The news of his safe arrival at Swan River had only just reached the Sound when Mr. Eyre arrived in Princess Royal Harbour with a vessel laden with sheep; he was followed in a few days by Lieutenant Mundy, who came in a larger one laden with horned stock and sheep; and they immediately despatched another vessel for 1000 more sheep.
STATE OF THE CATTLE MARKET THERE.
Thus was a sort of communication established between the two colonies; but the profits arising from the sale of stock brought in a vessel were in a great measure absorbed by the expenses of transport, and in the winter season the passage is too rough to allow of the risk of shipping stock. Were they driven overland, instead of being transported by sea, horned stock could be sold at about 5 pounds per head, and sheep for 15 shillings per head less. Moreover the price of the different colonial markets would be equalised, and new settlers in all the colonies would start with an equal chance; whereas at present if two settlers with equal means go the one to Western and the other to Southern Australia, for every 100 head of horned stock and 100 head of sheep that the settler in Western Australia can buy with his capital the settler in Southern Australia can buy 200 head of horned cattle and 800 of sheep; this scarcely appears to create so vast a difference between the two as it really does until we regard the relative position of the two settlers at the end of some given term of years, for instance five; they would then stand thus: TABLE OF RELATIVE VALUES OF SOUTHERN AND WESTERN AUSTRALIAN STOCK.
GENERAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE SPREAD OF COMMERCE AND EMIGRATION.
The rapidity of communication from point to point has introduced such vast effects in the march of improvement among distant lands as only eye-witnesses can believe. The merchant in London who lays on a vessel for a certain port regards the affair as a mere mercantile speculation, but could he trace out the results he effects in their remotest ramifications he would stand astonished at the changes he produces. With the wizard wand of commerce he touches a lone and trackless forest, and at his bidding cities arise, and the hum and dust of trade collect, away are swept ancient races; antique laws and customs moulder into oblivion. The strongholds of murder and superstition are cleansed, and the Gospel is preached amongst ignorant and savage men. The ruder languages disappear successively, and the tongue of England alone is heard around.
Such are the ultimate effects of the daily occupations of many men in the City of London, who, seated in a dark and dingy counting-house in pursuit of gain, form and execute schemes the eventual tenor and bearing of which are not to enrich themselves but the human race. No doubt amongst the mass are noble minds who have a perception of the true object of their calling, who feel a just and laudable pride that they are the employers and benefactors of mankind; whose names, even amongst distant hordes of untaught men, pass current, as a security for probity and honour; who write a few lines in London and move the antipodes; who within the last fifty years have either actually erected or laid the stable foundation of six great empires, offsets of that strong nation who, together with her progeny, is overspreading the earth, not by the sword but by the gentle arts of peace and beneficence.
GENERAL RESULTS OF GREAT MERCANTILE OPERATIONS.
In the earlier Colonies, founded by the great maritime powers of the world, national hatred prevailed to a great degree, although war existed not between the parent states: still, at distant points removed from the immediate control of the law, the hatred of races found vent, cruelties were committed, reprisals took place, and Europeans warred one upon another. But England and America, as they progress in these regions, spread a common language and a common faith, and no national antipathies can be strictly said to exist between them.
TRADE OF THE AMERICANS WITH OUT-STATIONS.
The Americans, who are decidedly a more enterprising mercantile people than ourselves, have almost engrossed the profits of the seas surrounding the Indian Archipelago and the western and south-western portions of New Holland. Their vessels in these parts are to ours in the ratio of at least ten to one. They constantly frequent the out-stations of Western Australia; supply the wants of those retired portions of the world, and where, legitimately, the British manufacturer should command the market, little besides the produce of America is to be seen. The settlers at these stations derive the largest portions of their supplies from the American whalers, who give them in exchange for potatoes and vegetables--and this species of barter is so profitable to both parties that it would be impossible to prevent it (nay the attempt would be cruel) by any other means than by inducing British whalers and merchant-vessels to secure some portion of those advantages which are at present wholly monopolized by others.
EFFECTS OF THE SPIRIT OF SPECULATION.
The masters of the American whalers participate in a great degree in the feelings of the out-settlers; from the impressions generated in their infancy they are disposed to look with a fraternal eye upon the few adventurous spirits who have located themselves far from their fellow men to reclaim a home from the wilderness. They have seen, lived amongst, and shared the benefits which result from such commencements, and it is not therefore to be wondered at that at all the out-stations the most friendly relations exist between the settlers and the American whalers; and when, during the five months of the bay whaling season, an American vessel lays at anchor in some bay where there are one or two settlers' families, a constant exchange of mutual acts of kindness takes place, equally creditable to both parties; whence result friendship, and perhaps an intermarriage; and when the period of the vessel's sailing arrives there are numerous deserters from her crew, who readily find employment at the different sheep stations.
DIFFUSION OF EMIGRATION.
Thus a species of emigration of which nothing is known in England takes place in the colonies. Men, from the force of poverty, from the desire of gain, or of founding a family and property in a new land, or for some other reason, quit their homes and enter another portion of the globe. There they find many who, having in the commencement of a settlement realized the largest profits, are discontented with the percentage they can now gain upon their capital; and what to the newcomer appears to be a highly remunerating return they despise; gladly therefore do they dispose of everything to the new emigrants and, animated by that restless spirit of adventure which is common to all first settlers, away they start for the last new colony or for unsettled lands--New Zealand, the Sandwich Islands, the Indian Archipelago, it matters not which--a fresh field of speculation has been opened, the tide of emigration from Europe seems to be setting towards a certain quarter where there are numerous new arrivals who can never compete with old and practised colonists. He who has seen several cities rise can judge to a nicety, from local circumstances, upon what site the capital of the new province must be built; and in the same way he can foresee which must become the business street, and hence knows exactly the relative value of every acre of land in the province. In vain for him are reports spread that the capital is to be built in such or such a spot, he but encourages them; in the meantime rapidly and noiselessly his purchases are made, and a fresh acquisition of fortune secured.
This class of men, amongst whom are many Overlanders, are never satisfied or settled; they are constantly engaged in contemplating changes in the prosperity of colonies and means of enriching themselves, they positively disregard personal comfort, and a restless spirit of activity and love of change animates them wholly. In these respects there is a great similarity of character between them and the Americans, and it is inconceivable in how short a period of time such a change is brought about.
THE ABORIGINES.
CHAPTER 9. NATIVE LANGUAGE.
RADICAL UNITY OF THE AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGE THROUGHOUT THE CONTINENT.
In the preceding narrative of my Expeditions I have occasionally introduced some casual incidents relating to the manners and social condition of the natives of Australia, a race generally considered to occupy too low a position in the scale of humanity to be worthy of any peculiar regard. In the following pages I shall bring together such observations as my intercourse with them enabled me to collect; arranging my remarks under the heads of Language, traditional or customary Laws, and social Habits and Manners; and to these I shall add some desultory anecdotes illustrative of their superstitions, and of some other peculiarities of thought and action; and shall conclude with a short review of the influence that the settlement of Europeans among them has, or is likely to have, on their condition.
CAUSES OF A CONTRARY OPINION.
It has hitherto been very generally believed that the languages spoken in different portions of the continent of Australia are radically distinct; and as such a circumstance, were it really the case, would tend to prove that its inhabitants originated from several separate races, it becomes rather an important matter to set this question at rest, and to endeavour to show from what cause so erroneous an opinion originated.
The arguments which prove that all the Australian dialects have a common root are:
1. A general similarity of sound and structure of words in the different portions of Australia, as far as yet ascertained
2. The recurrence of the same word with the same signification, to be traced, in many instances, round the entire continent, but undergoing, of course, in so vast an extent of country, various modifications;
3. The same names of natives occurring frequently at totally opposite portions of the continent. Now, in all parts of it which are known to Europeans, it is ascertained that the natives name their children from any remarkable circumstance which may occur soon after their birth; such being the case, an accordance of the names of natives is a proof of a similarity of dialect.
CAUSES OF ERROR IN ENQUIRERS.
The chief cause of the misapprehension which has so long existed with regard to the point under consideration is that the language of the aborigines of Australia abounds in synonymes, many of which are, for a time, altogether local; so that, for instance, the inhabitants of a particular district will use one word for water, whilst those of a neighbouring district will apply another, which appears to be a totally different one. But when I found out that in such instances as these both tribes understood the words which either made use of, and merely employed another one, from temporary fashion and caprice, I felt convinced that the language generally spoken to Europeans by the natives of any one small district could not be considered as a fair specimen of the general language of that part of Australia, and therefore in the vocabulary which I compiled in Western Australia I introduced words collected from a very extensive tract of country.
Again, in getting the names of the parts of the body, etc., from the natives, many causes of error arise; for they have names for almost every minute portion of the human frame: thus, in asking the name for the arm, one stranger would get the name for the upper arm, another for the lower arm, another for the right arm, another for the left arm, etc.; and it therefore seems most probable that in the earlier stages of the inquiry into the nature of the language of this people these circumstances contributed mainly to the erroneous conclusion that languages radically different were spoken in remote parts of the continent.
PROOFS OF IDENTITY OF THE LANGUAGE THROUGHOUT THE CONTINENT.
One singularity in the dialects spoken by the aborigines in different portions of Australia is that those of districts widely removed from one another sometimes assimilate very closely, whilst the dialects spoken in the intermediate ones differ considerably from either of them. The same circumstances take place with regard to their rites and customs; but as this appears rather to belong to the question of the means by which this race was distributed over so extensive a tract of country, I will not now enter into it, but merely adduce sufficient evidence to prove that a language radically the same is spoken over the whole continent.
If then we start from Perth in Western Australia, following the coast in a southerly direction, it will be found that between Perth and King George's Sound a common language is spoken, made up of several dialects, scarcely differing from one another in any material points and gradually merging into the dialects of these two places, as the points considered are nearer to one or the other.
The principal causes of difference between the dialects of these two places are, 1st, that at King George's Sound the terminating syllable of all names is dropped; and 2nd, that all verbs, with a very few exceptions, end in gur, instead of the varying termination which is given to them at Perth. Any person who can speak the Perth dialect will, by observing these two rules, be able to converse freely with the natives of King George's Sound.
From these examples it will be seen that the King George's Sound dialect is the simplest of the two; and indeed I am inclined to believe that the dialect there spoken is more simple than that in use at any other portion of the continent.
If we now proceed to Adelaide in South Australia we still find the same language spoken, but the dialect here is considerably softened; the hard g of Perth is exchanged for k, and b becomes p and w. Many of the nouns take -anga as a termination, and the verbs take -andi and -endi. This addition of soft terminations and a general sweetness of sound appear to be the peculiar characteristics of the Adelaide dialect. No large vocabulary of this language has yet been published, but one-eighth of the words known as belonging to the Perth dialect have been found also in that of Adelaide; we may therefore fairly conclude that when the latter language is better known a still greater degree of identity will be found to exist.
Natives from several parts of the Murray and Murrumbidgee and from Port Phillip have been brought into communication with natives from King George's Sound, scanty vocabularies from some of these points are also extant, and the amount of evidence thus gained clearly establishes that the several dialects are all derived from a common root.
The labours of Mr. Threlkeld in the vicinity of Hunter's River and Lake Macquarie enable us to compare the language of that portion of Australia with those of the other points which we have just considered, and the result of this comparison also shows that the languages are radically the same.
TABLES OF EXAMPLES.
The following Tables will give a sufficient number of words common to those four dialects to show the degree of similarity which exists among them.
VARIATIONS OF DIALECT.
Now before proceeding farther and thus entering upon ground which is very little known, there are several important circumstances worthy of consideration. In the vast extent of country which is comprised between the points embraced in these tables it was to have been expected that very great variations of dialect would have been found. If we only reflect upon the differences of dialect existing between the several counties of England, so limited in extent, how much greater were the variations to have been reasonably anticipated in a country between two and three thousand miles across, where an unwritten language is in use, and where no communication whatever takes place between the inhabitants of distant portions: moreover in this great extent the vegetation becomes totally different; birds, reptiles, and quadrupeds inhabit one portion of the continent which are unknown in another, and external nature altogether changes. Under these circumstances many new words must have been invented, and new terms must constantly have been introduced as the population spread across the country, and as those who were constantly pushing on from the outskirts of the inhabited parts ceased to communicate with the districts which had been first peopled, these changes must have been unknown to the original inhabitants of the continent and to those of their descendants who successively inhabited their territory.
If for instance this country was first peopled from the north or the tropical parts, the most remote inhabitants of the southern portions must have invented terms for snow, ice, hail, intense cold, etc., as well as for every tree and bird, for every fish and reptile, and for every insect; all the compound and comparative terms derived from these, as well as the original words, we ought therefore to expect to find totally different in the languages of the north and south, of the east and west; and from whatever portion of the continent we imagine the first inhabitants to have proceeded the same reasoning holds good.
RADICAL IDENTITY OF THE PRONOUNS.
But personal terms, such as the parts of the body, the pronouns, etc., and also verbs describing ordinary actions, ought not to be expected to vary in the same degree; and we shall accordingly find that it is chiefly in words of these and similar classes that the greatest degree of resemblance is found to exist. With regard to the pronouns this is very remarkable. In the singular, plural, and dual numbers they almost coincide in Western Australia, South Australia, and Sydney. The following table of the pronouns as used in those places will show this:
TABLE OF PRONOUNS.
DIFFERENCES OF DIALECT EXPLAINED. EXAMPLES.
To those who have not considered this circumstance languages have frequently appeared to be quite different which in reality are closely assimilated. Two instances will explain my meaning. The natives in the vicinity of Perth generally use the word gab-by, or kuyp-e, for water, but those inhabiting a district only twelve or fourteen miles distant from Perth adopt the word kow-win; the word used by the natives in the vicinity of Adelaide in South Australia for water is kauw-ee. Now, on comparing these words it might have been hastily concluded that the languages of West and South Australia were without affinity; but in fact the variation does not constitute any essential difference, for, considering the interchangeable nature of the consonants b, p, and w, and of g and k, which affect different dialects, we shall find the words gab-by, kuyp-e, kow-win and kauw-ee to be only different forms from one root. One instance of another kind may be given. The word for the sun at Perth is nganga, whilst at Adelaide it is tin-dee; but the word used by the natives at Encounter Bay, South Australia, thirty-six miles from Adelaide, is ngon-ge, and the word used in the southern districts of Western Australia for the stars is tiendee: thus by extending the vocabularies of the two places the identity of the language is shown.
CAUSES OF ERROR IN FORMER ENQUIRERS.
Up to the present time we have had only very meagre vocabularies, collected by passing strangers, each of whom adopted his own system of orthography, and the comparisons formed from such compilations must necessarily have been erroneous in the highest degree. Moreover in many instances these strangers were grossly imposed upon. One gentleman published a vocabulary of the King George's Sound dialect which has been largely quoted from by other writers; in this the numerals as high as ten are given, although the natives only count to four; and the translations of some words which he has put down as numbers are very humorous, such as: What do you mean? Get out, etc.
COMMON ORIGIN OF NATIVE POPULATION.
Many words spoken by the natives at Shark Bay are the same as those used by the natives at Perth, and the dialect in use in the Province of Victoria appears very nearly to assimilate to the latter, as is shown in the extracts from Mr. Moore's journal at page 120. Having thus traced the entire of the coastline of the continent of Australia, it appears that a language the same in root is spoken throughout this vast extent of country; and from the general agreement in this as well as in personal appearance, rites, and ceremonies, we may fairly infer a community of origin for the aborigines. This being admitted, two other questions will arise.
How were they disseminated over the continent?
and
At what period, and from what quarter, did they arrive upon it?
CHAPTER 10. THEIR TRADITIONAL LAWS.
ERRORS OF THEORETICAL WRITERS REGARDING THE SAVAGE STATE.
No question has, in as far as I can apprehend the subject, been so utterly misunderstood and misrepresented as the one relating to the customs and traditional laws of savage races. Deistical writers and philosophers of great note but small experience have built up whole theories, and have either overturned or striven to overturn ancient faiths and wholesome laws by arguments deduced, in the first instance, from the consideration of man in his simple or savage state; and from false premises they have deduced, logically, argument from argument, until even the most unwilling have begun to doubt.
COMPLEX LAWS OF SAVAGE LIFE.
But to believe that man in a savage state is endowed with freedom either of thought or action is erroneous in the highest degree. He is in reality subjected to complex laws which not only deprive him of all free agency of thought, but at the same time, by allowing no scope whatever for the development of intellect, benevolence, or any other great moral qualification, they necessarily bind him down in a hopeless state of barbarism from which it is impossible for man to emerge so long as he is enthralled by these customs; which, on the other hand, are so ingeniously devised as to have a direct tendency to annihilate any effort that is made to overthrow them.
This people reject in practice all idea of the equality of persons or classes; they make indeed no verbal distinctions upon this point, and if asked, were all men equal? they would be unable to comprehend the question; but there is no race that imposes more irksome restraints upon certain classes of the community.
CHARACTER OF THE NATIVE CUSTOMS. THEIR GENERALITY.
The whole tendency of their superstitions and traditional regulations is to produce the effect of depriving certain classes of benefits which are enjoyed by others; and this monopolizing of advantages often possesses amongst savages many characteristics which violate all the holier feelings of our nature, and excite a disgust of which it is divested in civilized life. In the latter case we see certain privileges even hereditarily enjoyed; but the weak and strong, the rich and poor, the young and old have paths of honourable ambition laid open to them by entering on which they can gain like immunities. While in the savage condition we find the female sex, the young, and the weak, condemned to a hopeless state of degradation and to a lasting deprivation of particular advantages merely because they are defenceless; and what they are deprived of is given to others merely because they are old or strong: and this is not effected by personal violence, depending upon momentary caprice and individual disposition (in which case it might be considered as the consequence of a state of equality) but it is enforced upon the natives of Australia by traditional laws and customs which are by them considered as valid and binding as our laws are by us.
CONSIDERATIONS ON THEIR ORIGIN.
The laws and customs alluded to cannot be considered as mere local institutions, for travellers and residents in the northern provinces of the colony of New South Wales describe as existing there usages nearly identical with those which regulate the proceedings of the natives occupying the west of the continent. And these testimonies cannot be doubted for they are incidentally introduced without any theoretical bias and in ignorance of the conformity they tend to prove. Natives from the country about the Murrumbidgee have described to me Australian customs as being in force there which exhibit the same accordance with those I found in the west; and I have myself ascertained their existence on several other portions of the continent. But it is remarkable that, although so many persons have described isolated customs of this people, no one has yet taken the trouble to digest them into one mass, and to exhibit them in the aggregate, so that an inference might be drawn as to how far the state in which the natives of Australia are at present found is caused by the institutions to which they are subjected.
We find then, in Australia, the remarkable fact that the inhabitants of a tract of country nearly two thousand miles in breadth are governed by the same institutions: and what renders this more singular is that the people submitted to them are not subjected by written rules of faith, which the chiefs of each race may interpret and modify according to their will; as is the case with those who are governed by the Koran or other similar codes; but in this instance mere oral traditions are handed down, which teach that certain rules of conduct are to be observed under certain penalties, and without the aid of fixed records, or the intervention of a succession of authorized depositaries and expounders these laws have been transmitted from father to son through unknown generations, and are fixed in the minds of the people as sacred and unalterable.
DEISTICAL REVERIES CONFUTED BY EXPERIENCE.
One common mode of argument among deistical writers is to imagine barbarous man let loose upon the earth without undergoing any previous preparation for the scene upon which he was about to enter; and they then trace out how, urged on by his necessities and aided by his senses, he successively discovered the natural productions necessary for his subsistence and the arts which ministered to his wants, until step by step he mounted to the pinnacle of civilization. But these are merely reveries of the closet, dreams of the inexperienced, and have no real foundation in as far at least as Australia is concerned. That the first natives who were placed on that continent must have been instructed how to provide for their wants, how to form weapons suited to their circumstances, how to select roots, and to capture animals fitted for food, has been demonstrated over and over again, but at no time more forcibly than when the portion of my party, under Mr. Walker, were coming overland from Gantheaume Bay to Perth. In this case six full-grown men, provided with knives, fishing-hooks and lines, a kettle, vessels to hold water and cook their food, arms, and a small quantity of ammunition, and many of them possessing considerable experience in the bush, must all have perished from hunger had not timely assistance reached them; and this from their ignorance as to which of the productions surrounding them would serve to support life, and not from neglect in making the requisite experiments to endeavour to ascertain this, for the poor fellows ate everything they could find which appeared to afford sustenance; yet notwithstanding all the comparative advantages they were in possession of, if the relief sent from Perth had not reached them, death must have overtaken all. The same result has frequently occurred under nearly similar circumstances. If then men, full-grown, in the complete possession of all their faculties, provided with fire and many useful implements, and aided by considerable experience, from ignorance of the natural productions of a country, and the means of procuring these, die from hunger ere they can learn how to supply their wants, is it probable that an unarmed, naked, untaught man, who knew not even how to make his senses act in concert until he had from experience acquired this knowledge, could by any possibility have avoided a fate, which would inevitably overtake the European in possession of all his superior energies of mind and character, if he chance not to fall in with friendly natives.
ENQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF THE NATIVE LAWS.
The laws of this people are unfitted for the government of a single isolated family, some of them being only adapted for the regulation of an assemblage of families; they could therefore not have been a series of rules given by the first father to his children: again, they could not have been rules given by an assembly of the first fathers to their children, for there are these remarkable features about them that some are of such a nature as to compel those subject to them to remain in a state of barbarism, whilst others are adapted to the wants and necessities of savage RACES, as well as to prevent too close intermarriages of a people who preserve no written or symbolical records of any kind; and in all these instances the desired ends are obtained by the simplest means, so that we are necessitated to admit that, when these rules were planned it was foreseen that the race submitted to them would be savages, and under this foresight the necessary provision was made for the event.
We cannot argue that this race was originally in a state of civilization, and that from the introduction of certain laws amongst them, the tendency of which was to reduce them to a state of barbarism, or from some other cause, they had gradually sunk to their present condition; for in that case how could those laws which provide solely for the necessities of a people in their present state have been introduced amongst them? Neither could they have been invented according to necessities and emergencies which a savage state has produced, for under such circumstances it is impossible that they could have been promulgated and enforced throughout so wide a range of country, and amongst a dispersed race of barbarians of such a variety of dispositions, who acknowledge no chief or lawgiver, and are so characteristically impatient of restraint.
Without in this place attempting to form and to support any theories founded upon the views I have just put forward, I may state my impression that it would seem, from the laws and customs of the natives of Australia, to have been willed that this people should until a certain period remain in their present condition, which is consequently not the result of mere accident, or of the natural constitution of man. From the peculiar nature of their institutions it was impossible that they could emerge from a state of barbarism whilst these remained in force, and from the tenacity and undeviating strictness with which they are retained, and the strong power they hold over the savage mind, it seems equally impossible that they could have been abrogated, or even altered, until the race subjected to them came into contact with a civilized community whose presence might exercise a new influence, under which the ancient system would expire or be swept away.
We may, I think, fairly produce this as a proof that the progress of civilization over the earth has been directed, set bounds to, and regulated by certain laws framed by Infinite wisdom; and, although such views may by some be deemed visionary, I feel some confidence that these laws are as certain and definite as those which control the movements of the heavenly bodies. I believe moreover, that they are capable in some degree of being studied and reduced to order, although no attempt to do so has hitherto been made; and the institutions of barbarous races, their probable origin, the effects they have upon the people submitted to them, the evidences of design which they contain, and other similar questions, are those points to which in this enquiry attention should be particularly directed.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
The progress of events and the rapid march of science in our country are very wonderful, but the progress of events in the eastern hemisphere at the present moment is still more amazing: Christianity and civilization are marching over the world with a rapidity not fully known or estimated by any one nation; the English are scarcely aware what has been effected by their own missionaries and commerce, and they are utterly ignorant of what has been already done, and is now doing, by the Americans, Dutch, and Portuguese.
CHAPTER 11. LAWS OF RELATIONSHIP, MARRIAGE, AND INHERITANCE.
RELATIONSHIP AND MARRIAGE. DIVISION OF FAMILIES.
Traditional Laws of Relationship and Marriage.
One of the most remarkable facts connected with the natives is that they are divided into certain great families, all the members of which bear the same names, as a family, or second name: the principal branches of these families, so far as I have been able to ascertain, are the:
Ballaroke
Tdondarup
Ngotak
Nagarnook
Nogonyuk
Mongalung
Narrangur.
But in different districts the members of these families give a local name to the one to which they belong, which is understood in that district to indicate some particular branch of the principal family. The most common local names are:
Didaroke
Gwerrinjoke
Maleoke
Waddaroke
Djekoke
Kotejumeno
Namyungo
Yungaree.
These family names are common over a great portion of the continent; for instance, on the Western coast, in a tract of country extending between four and five hundred miles in latitude, members of all these families are found. In South Australia I met a man who said that he belonged to one of them, and Captain Flinders mentions Yungaree as the name of a native in the gulf of Carpentaria.
LAW OF MARRIAGE.
These family names are perpetuated and spread through the country by the operation of two remarkable laws:
1. That children of either sex always take the family name of their mother.
2. That a man cannot marry a woman of his own family name.
COINCIDENT INSTITUTIONS AMONGST THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.
But not the least singular circumstance connected with these institutions is their coincidence with those of the North American Indians, which are thus stated in the Archaeologia Americana:*
Independent of political or geographical divisions, that into families or clans has been established from time immemorial. At what time and in what manner the division was first made is not known. At present, or till very lately, every nation was divided into a number of clans, varying in the several nations from three to eight or ten, the members of which respectively were dispersed indiscriminately throughout the whole nation. It has been fully ascertained that the inviolable regulations by which those clans were perpetuated amongst the southern nations were, first, that no man could marry in his own clan; secondly, that every child belongs to his or her mother's clan. Among the Choctaws there are two great divisions, each of which is subdivided into four clans, and no man can marry in any of the four clans belonging to his division. The restriction among the Cherokees, the Creeks, and the Natches, does not extend beyond the clan to which the man belongs.
There are sufficient proofs, that the same division into clans, commonly called tribes, exists among almost all the other Indian nations. But it is not so clear that they are subject to the same regulations which prevail amongst the southern Indians.
(*Footnote. Volume 2 page 109.)
A similar law of consanguinity seems to be inferred in Abraham's reply to Abimelech (Genesis 20:12) And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.
FAMILY NAMES AND SIGNS. ORIGIN OF FAMILY NAMES.
The origin of these family names is attributed by the natives to different causes, but I think that enough is not yet known on the subject to enable us to form an accurate opinion on this point. One origin frequently assigned by the natives is that they were derived from some vegetable or animal being very common in the district which the family inhabited, and that hence the name of this animal or vegetable became applied to the family. I have in my published vocabulary of the native language, under each family name, given its derivations as far as I could collect them from the statements of the natives.
But as each family adopts some animal or vegetable as their crest or sign, or Kobong, as they call it, I imagine it more likely that these have been named after the families than that the families have been named after them.
SECOND COINCIDENCE.
A certain mysterious connection exists between a family and its kobong, so that a member of the family will never kill an animal of the species to which his kobong belongs, should he find it asleep; indeed he always kills it reluctantly, and never without affording it a chance to escape. This arises from the family belief that some one individual of the species is their nearest friend, to kill whom would be a great crime, and to be carefully avoided. Similarly a native who has a vegetable for his kobong may not gather it under certain circumstances and at a particular period of the year. The North American Indians have this same custom of taking some animal as their sign. Thus it is stated in the Archaeologia Americana:* "Each tribe has the name of some animal. Among the Hurons the first tribe is that of the bear; the two others of the wolf and turtle. The Iroquois nation has the same divisions, only the turtle family is divided into two, the great and the little." And again, in speaking of the Sioux tribes:** "Each of these derives its name from some animal, part of an animal, or other substance which is considered as the peculiar sacred object or medicine, as the Canadians call it, of each band respectively." To this we may add the testimony of John Long, who says,*** "one part of the religious superstition of the savages consists in each of them having his totem, or favourite spirit, which he believes watches over him. This totem they conceive assumes the shape of some beast or other, and therefore they never kill, hunt, or eat the animal whose form they think the totem bears."
(*Footnote. Volume 2 page 109 quoting from Charlevoix volume 3 page 266.)
(**Footnote. Ibid page 110 quoting from Major Long's Exp. volume 1 chapter 15.)
(***Footnote. Voyages and Travels page 86.)
Civilized nations, in their heraldic bearings, preserve traces of the same custom.
BETROTHMENTS AND MARRIAGES.
Female children are always betrothed within a few days after their birth; and from the moment they are betrothed the parents cease to have any control over the future settlement of their child. Should the first husband die before the girl has attained the years of puberty she then belongs to his heir.
A girl lives with her husband at any age she pleases, no control whatever is in this way placed upon her inclinations.
WIDOWS.
When a native dies his brother inherits his wives and children, but his brother must be of the same family name as himself. The widow goes to her second husband's hut three days after the death of her first.
The old men manage to keep the females a good deal amongst themselves, giving their daughters to one another, and the more female children they have the greater chance have they of getting another wife by this sort of exchange; but the women have generally some favourite amongst the young men, always looking forward to be his wife at the death of her husband.
OBLIGATIONS OF RELATIONSHIP. DIVISION OF FAMILY BRANCHES.
But a most remarkable law is that which obliges families connected by blood upon the female side to join for the purpose of defence and avenging crimes; and as the father marries several wives, and very often all of different families, his children are repeatedly all divided amongst themselves; no common bond of union exists between them, and this custom alone would be sufficient to prevent this people ever emerging from the savage state.
As their laws are principally made up of sets of obligations due from members of the same great family towards one another--which obligations of family names are much stronger than those of blood--it is evident that a vast influence upon the manners and state of this people must be brought about by this arrangement into classes. I therefore devoted a great portion of my attention to this point, but the mass of materials I have collected is so large that it would occupy much more time to arrange it than I have been able to spare so as to do full justice to the subject; but in order to give an accurate idea of the nature of the enquiries I pursued I have given in the Appendix A a short genealogical list which will show the manner in which a native gives birth to a progeny of a totally different family name to himself; so that a district of country never remains for two successive generations in the same family. These observations, as well as others made with regard to the natives, can be only considered to apply, as yet, to that portion of Western Australia lying between the 30th and 35th parallels of south latitude unless the contrary is expressly stated; though I think there is strong reason to suppose that they will, in general, be found to obtain throughout the continent.
DIFFICULTY OF PURSUING THE ENQUIRY.
It is impossible for any person not well acquainted with the language of the natives and who does not possess great personal influence over them to pursue an inquiry of this nature; for one of the customs most rigidly observed and enforced amongst them is never to mention the name of a deceased person, male or female. In an inquiry therefore which principally turns upon the names of their ancestors this prejudice must be every moment violated, and a very great difficulty has thus to be encountered in the outset. The only circumstance which at all enabled me to overcome this was that the longer a person has been dead the less repugnance do they evince in uttering his name. I therefore in the first instance endeavoured to ascertain only the oldest names on record; and on subsequent occasions, when I found a native alone and in a loquacious humour, I succeeded in filling up some of the blanks. Occasionally round their fires at night I managed to involve them in disputes regarding their ancestors, and on these occasions gleaned much of the information of which I was in want.
LAWS OF LANDED PROPERTY. RIGHTS AND BOUNDARIES. PROPERTY VESTED IN INDIVIDUALS.
Traditional Laws relative to Landed Property.
Landed property does not belong to a tribe, or to several families, but to a single male; and the limits of his property are so accurately defined that every native knows those of his own land, and can point out the various objects which mark his boundary. I cannot establish the fact and the universality of this institution better than by the following letter addressed by Dr. Lang, the Principal of Sydney College, New South Wales, to Dr. Hodgkin, the zealous advocate of the Aboriginal Races:*
(*Footnote. Extracted from the Reports of the Aboriginal Protection Society.)
Liverpool, 15th November 1840.
My Dear Friend,
In reply to the question which you proposed to me some time ago in the course of conversation in London, and of which you have reminded me in the letter I had the pleasure of receiving from you yesterday, with the pamphlets and letters for America, namely, Whether the Aborigines of the Australian continent have any idea of property in land, I beg to answer most decidedly in the affirmative. It is well known that these Aborigines in no instance cultivate the soil, but subsist entirely by hunting and fishing, and on the wild roots they find in certain localities (especially the common fern) with occasionally a little wild honey; indigenous fruits being exceedingly rare. The whole race is divided into tribes, more or less numerous, according to circumstances, and designated from the localities they inhabit; for although universally a wandering race, with respect to places of habitation, their wanderings are circumscribed by certain well-defined limits, beyond which they seldom pass, except for purposes of war or festivity. In short, every tribe has its own district, the boundaries of which are well known to the natives generally; and within that district all the wild animals are considered as much the property of the tribe inhabiting, or rather ranging on, its whole extent, as the flocks of sheep and herds of cattle that have been introduced into the country by adventurous Europeans are held by European law and usage the property of their respective owners. In fact, as the country is occupied chiefly for pastoral purposes, the difference between the Aboriginal and the European ideas of property in the soil is more imaginary than real, the native grass affording subsistence to the kangaroos of the natives as well as to the wild cattle of the Europeans, and the only difference indeed being that the former are not branded with a particular mark like the latter, and are somewhat wilder and more difficult to catch.
EFFECTS OF EUROPEAN APPROPRIATION.
Nay, as the European regards the intrusion of any other white man upon the cattle-run, of which European law and usage have made him the possessor, and gets it punished as a trespass, the Aborigines of the particular tribe inhabiting a particular district regard the intrusion of any other tribe of Aborigines upon that district, for the purposes of kangaroo hunting, etc., as an intrusion to be resisted and punished by force of arms. In short this is the frequent cause of Aboriginal, as it is of European wars; man, in his natural state, being very much alike in all conditions--jealous of his rights and exceedingly pugnacious. It is true the European intruders pay no respect to these Aboriginal divisions of the territory, the black native being often hunted off his own ground or destroyed by European violence, dissipation, or disease, just as his kangaroos are driven off that ground by the European's black cattle; but this surely does not alter the case as to the right of the Aborigines.
UNIVERSALITY OF THIS CUSTOM.
But particular districts are not merely the property of particular tribes; particular sections or portions of these districts are universally recognised by the natives as the property of individual members of these tribes; and when the owner of such a section or portion of territory (as I ascertained was the case at King George's Island) has determined on burning off the grass on his land, which is done for the double purpose of enabling the natives to take the older animals more easily, and to provide a new crop of sweeter grass for the rising generation of the forest, not only all the other individuals of his own tribe, but whole tribes from other districts, are invited to the hunting party and the feast and dance, or corroboree that ensue; the wild animals on the ground being all considered the property of the owner of the land. I have often heard natives myself tell me, in answer to my own questions on the subject, who were the Aboriginal owners of particular tracts of land now held by Europeans; and indeed this idea of property in the soil, FOR HUNTING PURPOSES, is universal among the Aborigines. They seldom complain of the intrusion of Europeans; on the contrary, they are pleased at their sitting down, as they call it, on their land: they do not perceive that their own circumstances are thereby sadly altered for the worse in most cases; that their means of subsistence are gradually more and more limited, and their numbers rapidly diminished: in short, in the simplicity of their hearts, they take the frozen adder in their bosom, and it stings them to death. They look for a benefit or blessing from European intercourse, and it becomes their ruin.
If I had had a little more leisure I would have written more at length and in a style more worthy of your perusal; but you may take it as certain, at all events, that the Aborigines of Australia HAVE an idea of property in the soil in their native and original state, and that that idea is, in reality, not very different from that of the European proprietors of sheep and cattle, by whom they have, in so many instances been dispossessed, without the slightest consideration of their rights or feelings.
Indeed the infinity of the native names of places, all of which are descriptive and appropriate, is of itself a prima facie evidence of their having strong ideas of property in the soil; for it is only where such ideas are entertained and acted on that we find, as is certainly the case in Australia, Nullum sine nomine saxum.
I am, my dear Friend,
Your's very sincerely,
JOHN DUNMORE LANG.
To Dr. Hodgkin.
LAWS OF INHERITANCE AND TRESPASS. LINE OF INHERITANCE.
A father divides his land during his lifetime, fairly apportioning it amongst his several sons, and at as early an age as fourteen or fifteen they can point out the portion which they are eventually to inherit.
If the males of a family become extinct the male children of the daughters inherit their grandfather's land.
CERTAIN LAWS REGARDING ARTICLES OF FOOD.
The punishment of trespass for the purpose of hunting, is invariably death, if taken in the fact, and at the very least an obstinate contest ensues. If the trespasser is not taken in the fact, but is recognised from his footmarks, or from any other circumstance, and is ever caught in a defenceless state, he is probably killed; but if he appears attended by his friends he is speared through the thigh, in a manner which will be mentioned under the head of punishments.
There are other laws intended for the preservation of food, such as that which enjoins that:
1. No vegetable production used by the natives as food should be plucked or gathered when bearing seed.
2. That certain classes of natives should not eat particular articles of food; this restriction being tantamount to game laws, which preserve certain choice and scarce articles of food from being so generally destroyed as those which are more abundant.
3. The law regarding the family kobongs, mentioned above.
Independent of these laws there are certain articles of food which they reject in one portion of the continent and which are eaten in another; and that this rejection does not arise from the noxious qualities of the article is plain, for it is sometimes not only of an innocent nature but both palatable and nutritious: I may take for example the unio, which the natives of South-west Australia will not eat because, according to a tradition, a long time ago some natives ate them and died through the agency of certain sorcerers who looked upon that shellfish as their peculiar property.