The Aborigines of Australia

Front matter, preface and contents

RODERICK J. FLANAGAN.

Engraved from a Photograph in possession of the Author's Brother (Mr, E. F. Flanagan), taken in 1862

THE

Chapter 1

THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA.

CHAPTER I

THEIR ORIGIN—PROBABLE PERIOD OF THEIR ARRIVAL.

No branch of that large section of the human race which, whether by the colour of their skin or by some other natural or fortuitous circumstance, has received from nature, or the hand of Providence, the impress of inferiority, seems to have occupied less of the attention or research of civilization and philosophy than the portion of the sable sons of earth inhabiting the Australian continent. This, no doubt, is in a great measure owing to that physical inferiority which this people certainly exhibit in as great a degree as almost any other race of men known. Their isolated and scattered position, their roving mode of life, their unwarlike character, their rude and all but harmless weapons, the utter absence of anything like concert in their habits and operations, have ever rendered them unimportant neighbours and feeble and insignificant enemies. Incapable of creating any considerable mischief, they have never, by war or by their opposition to the progress of the white man, forced themselves on the attention either of the governments or philanthropists of Europe. Another cause, no doubt, of the unbroken obscurity in which the history of the aborigines of this territory has been permitted to remain involved, is the extreme difficulty which, from the very first, presents itself to the dispelling of the thick cloud which hangs around the primeval origin and subsequent progress of the Australian tribes. No monumental ruin, however obscure, or however feebly defined, has ever been discovered, throughout the length and breadth of the country, which might afford a clue to the civilization or barbarism of the people from whom they have descended. No form of worship, or well-defined religious belief, such as is found amongst almost all other barbarians, suggests the particular class of worshippers to which they originally belonged. No arts, however rude—none, however, in any way worthy the name—attest in the remotest degree, by their progress and condition, the period during which they might have been practised. Conjecture and analogy alone remain to guide the inquirer in any investigation touching the original inhabitants of the Australian wilds.

In entering on any investigation touching a people the first inquiry which naturally suggests itself is that concerning their origin. In assigning to the aborigines of Australia their position amongst the several families into which the human race is divided some difference of opinion prevails. Some have affirmed that they are a mixture of two races, which, although generally classed under the one head, nevertheless possess very strongly marked peculiarities and distinctions—namely, the Malayan and Papuan or Austral-negro races. This supposition is doubtless grounded on certain physical peculiarities, favourable to the belief that some admixture of the negro blood of New Guinea prevails amongst the New Hollanders. Foremost among these peculiarities are their hair and lips, the former presenting the half-woolly texture of the negro, while the latter, by their thickness, would also seem to indicate some slight connection with that caste. The best and most industrious writers on the subject, however, repudiate this alleged mixture of races in the New Hollander, deriving his origin directly from the Malays. This opinion seems based on the most substantial reasoning, and is the one most generally received. Although, as before observed, in some particulars the natives of New Holland may afford some slight indications of negro peculiarities, a closer examination must tend to place the former in a position much superior to any in which the Papuans can be viewed. These latter are described as a race of woolly-headed, thick-lipped negroes, slightly differing in feature from those of Africa, of a lighter colour than the latter, and scarcely ever exceeding five feet in height Here everyone at all acquainted with the aboriginal race of this continent must perceive that the analogy altogether fails; the New Hollander is so far from being low of stature, that his height seldom, if ever, falls below five feet, and travellers in the interior mention instances of aborigines having attained a stature of six feet one, two, or even three inches, while the beautiful symmetry and excellent proportions of some individuals among them have often excited the wonder and admiration of Europeans. These last-mentioned facts are sufficient of themselves to show that, however incredible it may appear to those who have heretofore regarded the New Hollander as a being only one remove above some of the inferior animals, the latter can still put forth some very strong and cogent arguments in support of the supposition that he is part and parcel of that better order of men who, originally inhabiting the peninsula of Malacca, have spread themselves in the course of ages over some of the finest groups in the South Seas, to New Zealand, and the Sandwich Islands. Another strong argument against the supposition that the tribes of New Holland consist of an admixture of a superior and inferior race of men is that these tribes are now, beyond doubt, universally identical. This fact, so far from being doubted, has never been called in question. Had the negroes of Papua introduced themselves into the island at any time prior or anterior to, or simultaneously with, the advent of the Malayan adventurers, some traces of them as a distinct and separate people must still exist. Granted even that the two races might, as the supporters of that theory allege, have amalgamated into one people, still in a territory so vast, and among tribes so fractional and so numerous, some indubitable traces of the double origin must have remained. If it be argued, as no doubt it may, that the natives of New Holland, in the best light in which they can be viewed, present an aspect altogether inferior to those other nations of undoubted Malayan origin who inhabit the numerous islands of the southern ocean, it must be borne in mind that races, like individuals, in the course of time lose their peculiarities; and where more likely to change for the worse than in a country like Australia, ever extending, ever presenting new inducements or pressing necessities to roam, neither in its natural productions nor in its territorial features presenting those attractions which alone could induce a barbarous or semi-barbarous people to congregate, to settle, and to improve? Hence, from the moment the first voyager arrived in his galley or canoe on the shores of Australia he became a new being; and hence the present aboriginal inhabitant of New Holland is to be regarded as an order of man peculiar to the country and the clime in which he has been found. It is not intended to show that the Australian aboriginal of the present day is equal in appearance, in physical development, or even in mental endowments, to the inhabitants of the Spice Islands, of New Zealand, or Tahiti; sufficient will have been effected if it can be shown that, if inferior to the inhabitants of those islands, circumstances alone, and the more unfavourable position and features of the country to which fate originally guided him, are to be blamed for that result.

The next question which presents itself to the inquirer after the antiquity of the New Hollander is the period of his arrival. Here, again, conjecture is the only guide which presents itself by which to attain to any approximation to truth. For certain it is that those early colonists of Australia set up no adequate monument to commemorate the event to future ages, or if they did it is equally certain that no such memorial has survived to record the circumstances of its construction. That the present aboriginal tribes of Australia are, however, the descendants of some particular batch of adventurers it is easy to suppose. The same cause which leads to the inference that the whole are the posterity of the same original stock—namely, the identity of the tribes—will readily confirm the belief that the progenitors of the present race arrived simultaneously, or at all events within a very limited period. Navigation, even of that rude description practised among savages, and which consists merely in propelling a canoe from one island to another, or from one bay or headland to another, had long been a dead letter on the shores of the Australian continent. Hence we may readily suppose that for a long period of time, or probably ever since their first arrival, they had severed that connecting link which united them with their original country.

But when did that dispersion take place which gave its first inhabitants to New Holland? Were its first colonists a section of those adventurers who, according to some writers, among the first of whom is Dr. Lang, in his "History of the Polynesian Nation," during the era immediately succeeding the Deluge issued forth from their homes in the southern extremity of Asia on the western ocean, colonized in their course that chain of islands which forms a connecting link between two worlds in the southern seas, and after encountering incredible hardships and dangers, finally succeeded in reaching the western coast of the American continent, where their descendants founded mighty civilized nations, the decayed remnants only of which existed in Mexico and Peru when these regions were explored by the discoverers and conquerors who followed in the track of Columbus? Or is the original colonization of New Holland the result of some later exodus? If its first inhabitants did not arrive in the days of Shem and Ham, did they not arrive before Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt? If not prior to that event, did they not arrive before the founding of the Roman Empire? And if not before that period, did they not arrive before the Christian era? And if not then, at what period since? On these points all is uncertainty. No monuments, no traditions, no worship, no method even of computing time exist to aid speculation. By means of this latter light alone we arrive at the conclusion that if the original founders of the race who now inhabit the Australian wilderness did not go forth at the early period assigned to the dispersion of the founders of the Indo-American people, they at all events must have emigrated at some very early period in the world's history. Monuments, in the ordinary sense of the term, certainly do not exist to fix the precise period; but testimonies indubitable and in- controvertible attest the antiquity of their coming; and these are—first, the presence of their descendants in every part of the vast continent; and, secondly, the peculiarities of these descendants in mind and form distinguishing them from all other nations. It required no inconsiderable space of time to enable a barbarous people, first landing at some point in the extreme north of the Australian territory, to pass through the immense intervening forests, and over the rugged mountains or burning plains of the interior wilderness, and to establish themselves as they have done on the shores and rivers of the extreme south, west, and east; and to render the New Hollander the changed and degenerate being which he now appears, so different from those descendants from the same stock—the New Zealander, the Tahitian, and the American Indian—must have been the work of ages.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

CAUSES WHICH LED TO THEIR DISPERSION—CAUSES OF THEIR DEGENERACY—SUPERIORITY OF NORTHERN ABORIGINES—NUMERICAL FORCE OF TRIBES—SYSTEM OF CHIEFSHIP—CUSTOMS.

TAKING it for granted, which we may readily do, from the most superficial acquaintance with the aborigines, as well as from the testimony of those who have had the most ample opportunity of discovering and delineating their characteristics, that the evidences of a very high order of humanity very often and very strikingly become manifest in their composition and character, the question suggests itself how they have, generally speaking, fallen so low as they are now found. Holding by the theory of their Malayan origin, this degeneracy appears the more striking when we consider that in their voyage to the shores of their future home they encountered none of those hardships and excessive privations which their more adventurous brethren endured in their long and perilous voyages westwards—privations and hardships which, according to some speculations, first gave rise to the practice of cannibalism. That they could have encountered none of these dispiriting and inhumanizing hardships, almost inseparable from a protracted sea voyage when the only appliances are those which comparative barbarism supplies, the relative geographical positions of the country from which they emerged, and that which was the object of their search, will at once render demonstrable. Such a voyage in such seas must, to a people whose highest objects were a mere sustenance and the excitement of adventure, have been one more of pleasure than of difficulty. Island after island, rising in rapid succession before the eyes of the explorers, must have afforded, during the succession of days and weeks occupied in the voyage, all the charm and variety of a natural panorama, until in due time the coasts and ranges of New Holland finally presented themselves to the eyes of the voyagers—the destined land of their future homes and fortunes. The next position in which we find the future inhabitant of Australia is the land of promise gained, roaming delighted among the thick forests and the delightful valleys, of which he is thereafter to be lord and master. And now comes, perhaps, the most critical period in his history. If the newly-arrived adventurers were the offshoot of some of the civilized branches of the human family on the opposite shores, would they not first of all set about forming society in the newly-discovered territory, in conformity with the usages and customs of the land they had left? Would they not establish some system of government similar to that under which they had formerly lived? Would they not initiate some form of worship similar to that which they had been accus- tomed to practice, and in conformity with their ideas of religion? Indubitably all these things the new settlers would be likely to do, and, most probably, all these proceedings were in due order gone through; but days and weeks passed over and a great change was wrought in the spirit of the adventurer. The land was still fair, the climate genial, and the spirit of enterprise still strong and buoyant; but the stern realities of life began to press very severely. What provisions remained of their sea stock, if any, were soon consumed. The hunting grounds in the immediate vicinity of the rude settlement were quickly cleared of their numerous stock to supply immediate wants, and hunger appeared in perspective. What, then, was to be done? Were they to retrace their steps, and to return to the country whence they came? Two serious obstacles presented themselves to this movement. The necessary sea provisions for even a very short voyage were wanting, and their frail barks, shattered by the effects of the former voyage and the action of a burning sun on their timbers, were altogether unfit a second time to encounter the surges the ocean. Thus precluded from the possibility of return, these primitive colonists, resigning themselves to a lot which they could not avert became permanent denizens of the Australian forests. Nor was this the worst of their fate. The same misfortune which confined them within the shores of the new coasts pursued them still further, and made them a roaming people—perpetual wanderers over its interminable wilds. No nutritious and abundant root, such as the potato or the yam, springing spontaneously in the soil or requiring but little labour in its production, presented a never-failing means of sustenance, and an inducement to form settled communities; no cocoanut or bread-fruit tree, or maize plant, bending beneath the weight of their respective products, charmed the vision or solaced the loneliness of the wanderer. No mighty river or broad lake, with smooth, clear surface, teeming with finny life, and surrounded by all the necessaries and charms of existence, invited the wanderers to establish themselves permanently on its fertile banks. All was bleak barrenness and disheartening scarcity. One only means of human sustenance did the vast territory present—the animal tribes which bounded over its plains, or scampered up and down the trunks and branches of the towering trees; and to procure this mcans of supporting life in himself and household, the New Hollander was condemned to a life of perpetual roaming—a life of perpetual savageness—ever impelled by the silent but imperative watchword, onward! Hence that dispersion; hence those outward symptoms of the most complete barbarism; hence, in fine, that degeneracy and that debasement of the human character which a certain class of reasoners are ever ready to seize upon with the utmost avidity, for the purpose of endeavouring to belie the nost simple principles of philosophy, as well as the first teachings of revelation.

But while admitting the worst that can be advanced against him, it is but right to mention that the aboriginal of Australia is to be viewed in some instances in a state in which the evidences of extreme degeneracy are in a great degree, if not altogether, wanting. Speaking of some natives with whom he came into contact in the neighbourhood of Port Essington, Captain Stokes, in the narrative of his "Discoveries in Australia," says:—

"I could not help comparing the bold, fearless manner in which they came towards us—their fine manly bearing, head erect, no crouching or averting of eye—with the miserable objects I had seen at Sydney. I now beheld man in his wild state, and, reader, rest assured there is nothing can equal such a sight."

Here is a most striking exception to that general falling-off so manifest in the Australian tribes—an exception the more worthy of note, and more fully illustrating our idea, as it is presented in the immediate neighbourhood of what we have reason to believe was the first landing-place of the founders of the entire race.

The next position in which it will be necessary to review the New Hollander, in order to see him thoroughly, is in his political and social relations—if such terms may be used without exciting a smile—as imposed by his new state. In issuing forth into the wilderness, in quest of sustenance and adventure, the impossibility of proceeding for any length of time in large bodies must very soon have forced itself upon the attention of the pilgrims. The few roots and herbs which they found fit for food were only to be procured in very small quantities; the straggling streams interspersed throughout their journey were, in many instances, altogether destitute of fish, and where the finny tribes existed small quantities only be procured from the niggard waters; numerous wild animals, it is true, scampered along the plains, or concealed themselves in the thick underwood, while some wild birds of a tempting aspect were present in the wilds; but these were only to be procured by the exercise of considerable skill, industry, and patience. Hence the scarcity of the necessaries of life at once pointed out the inconvenience of proceeding in large numbers, and hence the division of the wayfaring multitude into numerous tribes must have followed almost immediately after their first entrance into the wilderness, each division placing itself under the guidance of a leading spirit, some redoubtable warrior or hoary sage, on whose prowess or judgment they had learnt to rely, and in whose protection and guidance they felt secure. Here was the origin of these infinitesimal divisions into which the sable population of Australia is found divided. The numbers of individuals of which these tribes generally consist have variously estimated. Some authorities have mentioned tribes numbering as many as a thousand men. The general tendency of our information on these matters, however, is opposed to the belief that any of the aboriginal tribes are numerically so large and powerful as these numbers would imply. It is very doubtful, indeed, whether any tribes could be found numbering altogether—men, women, and children—many more individuals than 1,000, or about 200 full-grown men. It is probable, however, that in their wars and on particular occasions alliances and conjunctions may be formed, when very large numbers, equal to or exceeding the figures mentioned, are brought together, and for a limited time associate and act in concert.

Another question which has formed the subject of dissent and debate is the system of governance which prevails in the respective tribes, it being generally understood that authority or unity of no description whatever extends further. Not only, indeed, is the plan of government which obtains among the New Hollanders a subject of doubt, but it has been questioned whether any definite or fixed system of chiefship or government at all exists amongst them. This latter idea cannot, however, on any known analogy or principle be sustained. That they have no chiefs, such as the caciques of the American Indians, or the magnates of the South Sea Islands, New Zealand, &c., whose sway is derived from ancestors, and handed down from father to son, and who are at once the objects of the veneration and respect of their lieges, we have reason to believe. The instances are, indeed, numerous of individuals among them, in the neighbourhood of European settlements, receiving the appellations of chiefs of their tribes. But those distinctions are as often, or more so, the result of some whim of the Europeans as any agreement or authority among themselves; and when such titles do happen to be admitted by the aborigines themselves it is a title tacitly allowed to the individual more from his ruling qualities than from any other cause, by which tacit agreement a certain deference is paid to those qualities, while he is able to exhibit them personally, but no longer—a rule perfectly equitable and consistent among savages, where mere physical qualities are so likely to prevail over all others. Some years since nothing was more common than to observe among the groups of aborigines who usually assembled in the neighbourhood of Sydney some individual decked out in the gorgeous appendages of a half-moon of brass, suspended by a chain of the same metal around the neck, a cast-off cocked hat of some military officer, bending down under the weight of its feather, placed in any and every position on the crown of the head; the coat and trousers—if such were worn—in keeping or not, as circumstances happened, with the gorgeous headpiece. These individuals were uniformly looked upon by the Europeans as kings or chiefs among their sable brethren, and spoken of as such, but that they in reality enjoyed no such dignities might readily be inferred from the inveterate vice of mendicancy in which they indulged in common with their supposed subjects, the cocked hat of the "king" being frequently degraded to the "base uses" of receiving the halfpence and pence which a long series of the most profound and comical bows and salaams had drawn from the pockets of the passers-by. The supposition that no regular system of chiefship prevails among the aborigines receives authority from many facts. In all accounts of their wars and battles derived from various sources, the absence of any allusions to a recognized chief or leader, exercising a supreme and decided command, is striking. Great warriors they certainly have, who on such occasions take prominent positions and play conspicuous parts; but that such exercise any authority or influence over the acts or conduct of the others, except by a tacit understanding, there is reason to doubt. In some minute descriptions of their battles, related by eye-witnesses, the old women of the tribes are often made to occupy the position of chiefs in command on such occasions, stepping in front of the opposing lines, armed with spear and shield, haranguing the warriors in the most animating terms, working themselves into a frightful state of excitement, and ending their parts by hurling their weapons at the ranks of the enemy—thus giving the signal for the general onslaught. Many other particulars could be adduced to show that among the aborigines authority of a fixed and definite character, whether centred in individuals of the body or contained in some well known and well-established laws, is altogether wanting. The mere suggestions of instinct and the most palpable laws of nature alone seem to have any weight amongst them. This absence of authority is also manifested strongly in all their social relations; but in none more strikingly than in their system of courtship and matrimony, the future wife being in almost every instance carried off by her admirer by main force; consideration being seldom or never had either to the consent of the damsel herself, the approbation of her relatives, or the disposition of the tribe; and very rarely does it seem that such abductions are either resisted or resented.

From the general tendency of these and many other facts which could be adduced, it becomes apparent that the patriarchal form of government is that to which the system of rule prevalent amongst the aborigines most nearly approximates. Whether this be the result of ideas derived from their remote ancestors, or of their roving and unsettled mode of life, or whether it be the result of mere chance, obtaining in the first instance by accident, and perpetuated through succeeding time, are matters on which the mind may speculate, but on which it would be very difficult to arrive at a settled conclusion.

Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.

2em

It has been shown that whatever shade of authority exists among the aborigines partakes of the patriarchal kind. From whatever original cause this may have sprung, it indicates a state of things highly favourable to the New Hollander, as it shows that, however unpropitiously circumstances may have operated in his regard, however low he may have fallen, he has preserved himself free from the imputation of one great crime—the voluntary sacrifice of his freedom. It also indicates another fact, still more favourable, which is, that though, in the course of his long and desolate wanderings, he may have lost those fixed and definite ideas of the Creator which he derived from his fathers, he has not set up a human deity in His stead.

Now comes one of the most important considerations which can possibly be brought under review, whether in connection with the savage tribes of Australia or the most polished and enlightened of mankind. This consideration relates to their ideas and opinions as to a Supreme Being and a second state of existence. For several reasons this is one of the most difficult questions to determine in connection with them. The almost general unacquaintance with their language, their inability to enter into anything like a metaphysical conversation, and perhaps the general indisposition on the part of Europeans to make minute inquiries touching such matters—all these combined have tended to render mythological opinions of the aboriginal a matter of more than ordinary doubt and obscurity. The general scope of what information we do possess on the matter leads to the opinion that they hold belief in a Supernatural Being, exercising an unseen but extraordinary power over their whole race. This power, however, strange to say, is never mentioned by them as being exercised otherwise than for evil. Hence, in rendering his appellation into English, he is uniformly called after the Prince of Darkness—"Devil." Thunder, lightning, storms, and the other atmospheric or elemental disruptions are supposed to be among the chief manifestations of his power and wrath. Accordingly, whenever the elements are so disturbed, the blacks exhibit every symptom of extreme fear, concealing themselves in the most remote recesses of their haunts and habitations. The neighbourhood of extinct or smouldering volcanoes, of which several are dispersed throughout the territory, are avoided with a superstitious awe, as the favourite hiding-place of the much-dreaded evil genius. Very deep or lonely lagoons and water-holes are also shunned for the same reason. Whenever an individual disappears from a tribe in a mysterious manner, and is not again heard of, his absence is always attributed to the agency of the evil one, who is supposed to have carried him off to his unhallowed retreats.

It has heretofore been pretty generally entertained as a well-grounded belief that no other supernatural power besides this terror of the wilds is known to the New Hollander. Nor does the power with which he is invested, in the opinion of his believers, appear to be exercised with discrimination, extending only over the wicked, and punishing only the perpetrators of guilt. Caprice is the only rule of action attributed to him in all his dealings. An instance is recorded by a gentleman who took a considerable share of interest in the aboriginal race which will illustrate the extreme darkness investing their theological notions. In his endeavours to reflect on their understandings some of the simplest lights of truth, he sought on several occasions to impress them with the belief that their devil—or "debble debble," as they more generally called him—only destroyed or injured evil-doers, such as by turbulence, cruelty, and unkindness had been the cause of evil to their relatives or their tribe. This distinction, however, they are described as being utterly unable to comprehend, and sceptic mirth was the only manifestation drawn from the sable audience by the philanthropist's preaching.

That, however, they really have no knowledge of a supreme benevolent power, or that this power or spirit of which they know is in reality considered by them a purely evil one, it is very difficult to believe. But, without entering into any close reasoning on the subject, which our scanty information on the matter would no doubt render futile, it is impossible not to deduce from what we do know certain inferences favourable to the character of these primitive tribes. Whether or not they have any satisfactory idea of a Supreme Being, worshipped by the most refined and most barbarous as "Jehovah, Jove, or Lord," may be a matter of doubt; but that the object of their highest regard is a spirit, and not a material or visible being or object, is a matter of certainty. In this is not the Australian savage superior to the civilized inhabitants of Peru, whose deity was the sun, or the polished and luxurious Hindostanee, who to this day retains his hideous idols and monstrous pagan worship.