The Australian aboriginal

“When another sun will come, and when he is still a piccaninny, Punya umberri (everybody) will walk to the big stone (hill), lying in the gum-trees, where Kuddoguddogu (a landmark) holds up the clouds of the Pindanol’s country. Narrawiddi and Wetninnya will carry my angamma (bark-wrap with small personal belongings), and all other women will take many naramarragam (bark food-carriers) and fill them with yams on the way. Plenty water sits upon the ground. The men will run the kangaroo’s track with me.”

Upon an order like this from one of the old men, the following day’s itinerary is cast. Brief though it seems, it is sufficient because, although the chances of the coming expedition might widely separate the members of the group, they keep in constant touch with each other by signs and signals best known to themselves.

The site for a camping ground is thus always selected by one of the old men in authority. Preference is given, other things being equal, to a spot near to a natural water supply. There are, of course, numerous occasions when there is no water available. When, for instance, the natives are hunting in the sandhills during a good season, they either carry water with them for miles, or rely on the succulent parakylia and other water-holding plants.

It falls to the lot of the women to carry water upon such occasions. The fluid is contained in bark carriers of different designs, which they either skilfully balance upon their heads or carry under their arms. The water is kept from splashing over the sides, in the first place by the naturally graceful gait of the women; but, at the same time, an intentional addition of twigs and branchlets further checks any undue movement of the fluid which might be produced in the vessel during the march.

The Dieri, Yantowannta, Ngameni, Arunndta, Aluridja, Wongapitcha, and other central Australian tribes use shield or trough-shaped carriers cut out of the bark of the eucalyptus, shaped and hardened over the fire. The shield type is flat, with more or less open ends; the trough type has higher sides and ends, and is therefore more capacious. There is, however, no hard and fast division between the two. The surfaces of these are either smooth or longitudinally grooved with a stone scraper. The largest were observed on Cooper’s Creek, measuring three feet in length, one foot in width, and five inches in depth, while those of the Arunndta and Aluridja are not quite so long and wide, but they may be deeper. The utensils go by different names, according to tribe and locality; three of the most commonly heard are “mika,” “pitchi,” and “cooleman.” In addition to taking the place of water-holders, they are also used as food-carriers.

North of the MacDonnell Ranges, similar articles are cut out of solid wood, usually the Northern Territory Beantree (Erythrina vespertilio).

The Warramunga and Kaitish (or Kaitidji) tribes in addition make large canoe-shaped carriers out of similar material. Two varieties are met with. The first is more or less flat-bottomed with steeply inclined sides coming to a sharp edge at each end; the second is uniformly curved, shield-like, with all its sides standing at about the same level at the open end. The former is grooved longitudinally on the outside surface only, the inside being left in the rough; the latter is finely grooved on the inner, as well as the outer surfaces. Both types are generally painted over with red ochre. It is a decidedly laborious job to remove the wood, which originally fills the inside of this carrier, a fact which will be realized when one considers that it has all to be done by burning with live coals, and gouging and scraping with stone implements.

The Sunday Islanders take a rectangular sheet of bark of the woolly-butt eucalyptus, fold both ends for a distance of three or four inches, into pleats (like a concertina), and stitch them together with split cane. The utensil is used throughout the north-west coast as far as Cambridge Gulf.

On Bathurst and Melville Islands similar structures are made out of the bark of the paper-bark tree (Melaleuca). An oblong piece is bent upon itself lengthwise, both its ends folded, as in the previous case, and kept together by binding with cane or by spiking with short wooden pegs.

The same pattern, slightly modified here and there, is found along the shores and islands of the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Cape York Peninsula. We might say, therefore, that it occurs throughout the entire length of the north coast of Australia.

Another type, perhaps more food than water-carrier, is common on Melville and Bathurst Islands; it is made of a single piece of the “stringy-bark” eucalypt. An oblong sheet, say a good yard long and nearly half as wide, is freshly cut and folded transversely at its centre. The edges of both sides are pared down, laid flat, one over the other, and sewn or laced together with plain or “run-on” stitches. A row of slanting and overlapping stitches is often inserted along the open edge a short distance down; and occasionally part of the same edge may be cross-hemstitched and plastered with beeswax; the object of these stitches is to prevent the bark tearing along the fibres. The mouth of the carrier is nearly circular, or at any rate oval. Ordinarily the bark is left in its raw condition, but upon special occasions elaborate designs, consisting of circles, and other figures, with cross-hatched line-patterns, are drawn on the outer surfaces in red, yellow, white, and black.

An article is in use locally among the Worora at Port George IV, which perhaps interests us most on account of its similarity to the orthodox water-carrier employed by ourselves, viz. the bucket. What makes the fact more interesting still is that this unique type of water-vessel is found in a locality, than which even at the present time none other is further remote from civilization. The bark-bucket of the Worora, known vernacularly as “wirrauwa,” is beyond doubt an indigenous evolution. It is much like a bushman’s billycan in shape—a cylindrical vessel closed at one end and with a handle at the other, measuring from four to twelve inches in height, and from six to nine inches in width. A circular piece of woolly-butt bark is cut for the base, and this is surrounded by another sheet which forms the cylinder. The joints are carefully stitched together with threads of split cane, using a bone-awl to prick the holes; then melted resin from the eucalyptus tree is applied over the seam to render it water-tight. The edge of the open mouth may be strengthened by cross-stitching and applying resin. The handle is made of human hair-string, several pieces of which are threaded diametrically across the open end of the bucket, through holes previously made with a bone-awl, and tied. The outer surfaces of the vessel are often painted. The usual device consists of alternate bars of red and white or red and black, joined at the top and bottom by horizontal lines of red; occasionally the whole surface may be splashed or daubed with white, or the above designs may be embellished with regularly spaced dots and “emu tracks.”

Lastly we shall briefly refer to the skin water-bag which is used (or has been used) by the desert tribes of central Australia, from central Western Australia to Western Queensland. A kangaroo, wallaby, euro, or dingo is killed and the animal’s skin removed almost in toto by making a circular cut around its neck, and, whilst one or two men hold on to the head, others detach the skin from the carcase and pull it off inside-out. The neck-hole forms the mouth of the bag, but all the other openings are tied, stitched, or pinned together. The limbs are cut off near the paws, the tail near its root, and the resulting holes securely tied with string. The limb-pieces are tied together and act as straps to assist the native carrying the bag when filled with water.

To fill these vessels with water, bailers are available either in the form of specially constructed or of naturally occurring objects; no matter which they are, they usually also answer the purpose of drinking cups. Along the north coast of Australia the large melon shell is perhaps the handiest; it is either used as it is found or its inner whorls and columella are broken away, leaving just the spacious outer shell to hold the water like a bowl. The same remarks apply to the large Fusus pricei, and other molluscs.

The Narrinyerri and other tribes south of Adelaide used human calvaria as drinking vessels. The facial skeleton of a complete skull was broken away so as only to leave the brain-box; and this held the water.

The broken shells of the large boabab nuts are similarly used in the Northern Kimberleys of Western Australia, and now and then the broken shell of the emu egg also makes a very serviceable cup.

A miniature bark-cooleman is constructed by the Wongapitcha, Aluridja, and Arunndta tribes, like that described on page 92, about eight inches long and half as wide, which serves the purpose of a bailer, drinking-vessel, fire-shovel, and special food-carrier. It is strongly convex lengthwise, and therefore comparatively deep.

The Bathurst Islanders tear or cut a piece of bark from a tree, usually the ti-tree or “paper-bark,” out of which they fashion a cup. The piece of bark measures about twelve inches in length, and eight in width. It is first folded longitudinally at about its middle, and then both ends of the doubled piece are folded transversely at about one-quarter the whole length. The overturned parts of the inner sheet of the first fold are clasped between the fingers on the inside and the thumb on the outside, when the cup is ready for use.

The natural water supplies available over so vast an expanse of territory as is embraced by the continent of Australia and its subjacent islands, occur, as one might have expected, in great variety. There is no need for us to consider such familiar supplies as rivers, creeks, lakes, billabongs, waterholes, and springs; we shall just briefly consider a few of the more uncommon cases, which are of special interest. The native has a wonderful instinct for locating hidden supplies of water; and many a European wanderer has perished in the Australian bush, within a stone’s throw of the life-saving fluid, all for the want of that gift, which to the primitive inhabitant of the desert central regions means his very existence.

Along the superficially dry, sandy beds of “rivers” in arid Australia, he is able to pick sites, at which, by shallow digging with his hands and yam-stick, he can in quick time produce a “native well,” sufficient to supply the needs of all the camp. The water is often exposed within a foot or two of the surface, but at times he has to dig to a depth of from five to six feet, which so far as my experience goes seems to be the limit. When not in use, or when the camp moves on, the natives always take care to cover the mouth of the well in order that wild animals cannot reach the water and pollute it. When the well is deep, its sides are made secure with pieces of timber and brushwood, and cross-pieces are left to serve as a ladder whereby the native can attain the water. Similar wells are constructed in the catchment basins adjacent to the hills.

Rock-holes in granite (Musgrave Ranges), quartzite (Krichauff Ranges), or limestone (Nullarbor Plains) are favoured on account of the cool, clear water which they generally contain. Where such are of a cavernous nature, and opening from a bare inclined surface, the natives often build a small bank of clay across the slope to direct the flow of water, resulting from a downpour, towards the hole. A unique variety of this type was discovered by us at Ullbönnalenna, east of the Musgrave Ranges. Through a hole in the barren slope of gneiss, a communication has been established by atmospheric denudation with a small reservoir below. To obtain the water contained in it, the natives keep a broom-shaped piston handy, with which they pump the fluid to the surface, as required. The piston is merely a rod, about five feet long, round one end of which a bundle of brushwood is securely tied with string. The size of the brushwood bundle is such that it exactly fits the hole in the rock (about six inches). The implement is inserted, brushwood foremost, and slowly pushed down into the water, and, after a short interval, quickly withdrawn again. The water, which had collected behind this “piston-head,” is thereby forcibly ejected, and is collected inside a small enclosure of clay built around the hole.

The aborigines are most particular about preserving their water supplies against pollution, especially where such is brought about by excremental and decaying animal matter. In the Musgrave Ranges, the natives did not in the slightest object to our camels being watered at the supplies they were dependent upon, but when the animals dirtied the rocks above the hole and there was a chance of the discharge running into the water, they immediately set to and built a barrier of earth to intercept the flow before it reached the hole.

In the Northern Kimberleys of Western Australia valuable pools of water collect upon the boabab trees. The branches of this species surround the “gouty” stem in a circle at the top, like the heads of a hydra, and by this means form a concavity between them, which is capable of storing a considerable volume of cool, clear rain-water. To reach this water, the natives construct ladders by simply driving a series of pointed pegs into the soft bark of the tree one above the other.

Certain desert trees like the Currajong have the property of retaining considerable quantities of water in their tissues, even under the worst conditions of drought, for periods of many weeks or months. This water the native obtains by felling the tree and setting fire to the crown; the water oozes out from the cut trunk and is collected in bark carriers. The “Bloodwood” (Eucalyptus corymbosa) has similar properties.

In the Denial Bay district a remarkable mallee (Eucalyptus dumosa) grows, whose roots supply the natives with water. This mallee is a rather big tree, which lives in association with other smaller species of the same genus. It appears, also, that not every specimen of the particular species referred to contains water; it requires the experience of an aboriginal to predict which of the trees is likely to carry such. Having selected his tree, the native proceeds to expose one of the lateral roots, which grow in the sand at no great depth from the surface. The root is then cut in two places, three or four feet apart, and lifted from the ground in a horizontal position; finally it is turned on end over a bark cooleman, when water, clear as crystal, begins to drip from the lower end into the vessel. Sufficient water can thus be collected to sustain the camp, if need be, for even a longish period.

Other trees in central Australia are known to possess similar properties though to a lesser extent, as for instance the Needle-Bush (Hakea lorea, var. suberea).

When, after a good day’s march, the natives have the luck to strike a big waterhole, each of the party immediately quenches his thirst by literally “filling up” on the spot. Different methods are adopted to accomplish this. Some prefer to remain prone at the water’s edge, whilst others wade into the deeper parts of the hole, and, placing their hands upon their knees, stoop and drink off the surface.

The Cambridge Gulf tribes pull a long-stalked leaf of the water-lily, which, after they have cut it at top and bottom, acts like a tube and permits them to suck the cooler fluid from a depth.

After quenching his thirst, a native will on a hot day often cool his system by pouring water on to his head. The women-folk and children are very fond of splashing the head with cold water, which they might do repeatedly during the day, provided the opportunity is afforded. Bathing during the heat of the day is also commonly enjoyed by all the northern tribes, especially those resident in the tropics where water is abundant.