The origin of the natives of Australia presents a difficult problem. The
chief difficulty in deciding their ethnical relations is their
remarkable physical difference from the neighbouring peoples. And if one
turns from physical criteria to their manners and customs it is only to
find fresh evidence of their isolation. While their neighbours, the
Malays, Papuans and Polynesians, all cultivate the soil, and build
substantial huts and houses, the Australian natives do neither. Pottery,
common to Malays and Papuans, the bows and arrows of the latter, and the
elaborate canoes of all three races, are unknown to the Australians.
They then must be considered as representing an extremely primitive type
of mankind, and it is necessary to look far afield for their prehistoric
home.
Origin.
Wherever they came from, there is abundant evidence that their first
occupation of the Australian continent must have been at a time so
remote as to permit of no traditions. No record, no folk tales, as in
the case of the Maoris of New Zealand, of their migration, are preserved
by the Australians. True, there are legends and tales of tribal
migrations and early tribal history, but nothing, as A.W. Howitt points
out, which can be twisted into referring even indirectly to their first
arrival. It is almost incredible there should be none, if the date of
their arrival is to be reckoned as only dating back some centuries.
Again, while they differ physically from neighbouring races, while there
is practically nothing in common between them and the Malays, the
Polynesians, or the Papuan Melanesians, they agree in type so closely
among themselves that they must be regarded as forming one race. Yet it
is noteworthy that the languages of their several tribes are different.
The occurrence of a large number of common roots proves them to be
derived from one source, but the great variety of dialects--sometimes
unintelligible between tribes separated by only a few miles--cannot be
explained except by supposing a vast period to have elapsed since their
first settlement. There is evidence in the languages, too, which
supports the physical separation from their New Zealand neighbours and,
therefore, from the Polynesian family of races. The numerals in use were
limited. In some tribes there were only three in use, in most four. For
the number "five" a word meaning "many" was employed. This linguistic
poverty proves that the Australian tongue has no affinity to the
Polynesian group of languages, where denary enumeration prevails: the
nearest Polynesians, the Maoris, counting in thousands. Further evidence
of the antiquity of Australian man is to be found in the strict
observance of tribal boundaries, which would seem to show that the
tribes must have been settled a long time in one place.
A further difficulty is created by a consideration of the Tasmanian
people, extinct since 1876. For the Tasmanians in many ways closely
approximated to the Papuan type. They had coarse, short, woolly hair and
Papuan features. They clearly had no racial affinities with the
Australians. They did not possess the boomerang or woomerah, and they
had no boats. When they were discovered, a mere raft of reeds in which
they could scarcely venture a mile from shore was their only means of
navigation. Yet while the Tasmanians are so distinctly separated in
physique and customs from the Australians, the fauna and flora of
Tasmania and Australia prove that at one time the two formed one
continent, and it would take an enormous time for the formation of Bass
Strait. How did the Tasmanians with their Papuan affinities get so far
south on a continent inhabited by a race so differing from Papuans? Did
they get to Tasmania before or after its separation from the main
continent? If before, why were they only found in the south? It would
have been reasonable to expect to find them sporadically all over
Australia. If after, how did they get there at all? For it is impossible
to accept the theory of one writer that they sailed or rowed round the
continent--a journey requiring enormous maritime skill, which, according
to the theory, they must have promptly lost.
Four points are clear: (1) the Australians represent a distinct race;
(2) they have no kinsfolk among the neighbouring races; (3) they have
occupied the continent for a very long period; (4) it would seem that
the Tasmanians must represent a still earlier occupation of Australia,
perhaps before the Bass Strait existed.
Several theories have been propounded by ethnologists. An attempt has
been made to show that the Australians have close affinities with the
African negro peoples, and certain resemblances in language and in
customs have been relied on. Sorcery, the scars raised on the body, the
knocking out of teeth, circumcision and rules as to marriage have been
quoted; but many such customs are found among savage peoples far distant
from each other and entirely unrelated. The alleged language
similarities have broken down on close examination. A.R. Wallace is of
the opinion that the Australians "are really of Caucasian type and are
more nearly allied to ourselves than to the civilized Japanese or the
brave and intelligent Zulus." He finds near kinsmen for them in the
Ainus of Japan, the Khmers and Chams of Cambodia and among some of the
Micronesian islanders who, in spite of much crossing, still exhibit
marked Caucasic types. He regards the Australians as representing the
lowest and most primitive examples of this primitive Caucasic type, and
he urges that they must have arrived in Australia at a time when their
ancestors had no pottery, knew no agriculture, domesticated no animals,
had no houses and used no bows and arrows. This theory has been
supported by the investigations of Dr Klaatsch, of the university of
Heidelberg, who would, however, date Australian ancestry still farther
back, for his studies on the spot have convinced him that the
Australians are "a generalized, not a specialized, type of
humanity--that is to say, they are a very primitive people, with more of
the common undeveloped characteristics of man, and less of the qualities
of the specialized races of civilization." Dr Klaatsch's view is that
they are survivals of a primitive race which inhabited a vast Antarctic
continent of which South America, South Africa and Australia once formed
a part, as evidenced by the identity of many species of birds and fish.
He urges that the similarities of some of the primitive races of India
and Africa to the aborigines of Australia are indications that they were
peopled from one common stock. This theory, plausible and attractive as
it is, and fitting in, as it does, with the acknowledged primitive
character of the Australian blackfellow, overlooks, nevertheless, the
Tasmanian difficulty. Why should a Papuan type be found in what was
certainly once a portion of the Australian continent? The theory which
meets this difficulty is that which has in its favour the greatest
weight of evidence, viz. that the continent was first inhabited by a
Papuan type of man who made his way thither from Flores and Timor, New
Guinea and the Coral Sea. That in days so remote as to be undateable, a
Dravidian people driven from their primitive home in the hills of the
Indian Deccan made their way south via Ceylon (where they may to-day be
regarded as represented by the Veddahs) and eventually sailed and
drifted in their bark boats to the western and north-western shores of
Australia. It is difficult to believe that they at first arrived in such
numbers as at once to overwhelm the Papuan population. There were
probably several migrations. What seems certain, if this theory is
adopted, is that they did at last accumulate to an extent which
permitted of their mastering the former occupiers of the soil, who were
probably in very scattered and defenceless communities.
In the slow process of time they drove them into the most southerly
corner of Australia, just as the Saxons drove the Celts into Cornwall
and the Welsh hills. Even if this Dravidian invasion is put subsequent
to the Bass Strait forming, even if one allows the probability of much
crossing between the two races at first, in time the hostilities would
be renewed. With their earliest settlements on the north-north-west
coasts, the Dravidians would probably tend to spread out north,
north-east and east, and a southerly line of retreat would be the most
natural one for the Papuans.[3] When at last they were driven to the
Strait they would drift over on rafts or in clumsy shallops; being
thereafter left in peace to concentrate their race, then possibly only
in an approximately pure state, in the island to which the Dravidians
would not take the trouble to follow them, and where they would have
centuries in which once more to fix their racial type and emphasize over
again those differences, perhaps temporarily marred by crossing, which
were found to exist on the arrival of the Whites.
This Indo-Aryan origin for the Australian blackfellows is borne out by
their physique. In spite of their savagery they are admitted by those
who have studied them to be far removed from the low or Simian type of
man. Dr Charles Pickering (1805-1878), who studied the Australians on
the spot, writes: "Strange as it may appear, I would refer to an
Australian as the finest model of the human proportions I have ever met;
in muscular development combining perfect symmetry, activity and
strength, while his head might have compared with the antique bust of a
philosopher." Huxley concluded, from descriptions, that "the Deccan
tribes are indistinguishable from the Australian races." Sir W.W. Hunter
states that the Dravidian tribes were driven southwards in Hindustan,
and that the grammatical relations of their dialects are "expressed by
suffixes," which is true as to the Australian languages. He states that
Bishop Caldwell,[4] whom he calls "the great missionary scholar of the
Dravidian tongue," showed that the south and western Australian tribes
use almost the same words for "I, thou, he, we, you, as the Dravidian
fishermen on the Madras coast." When in addition to all this it is found
that physically the Dravidians resemble the Australians; that the
boomerang is known among the wild tribes of the Deccan alone (with the
doubtful exception of ancient Egypt) of all parts of the world except
Australia, and that the Australian canoes are like those of the
Dravidian coast tribes, it seems reasonable enough to assume that the
Australian natives are Dravidians, exiled in remote times from
Hindustan, though when their migration took place and how they traversed
the Indian Ocean must remain questions to which, by their very nature,
there can be no satisfactory answer.
The low stage of culture of the Australians when they reached their new
home is thus accounted for, but their stagnation is remarkable, because
they must have been frequently in contact with more civilized peoples.
In the north of Australia there are traces of Malay and Papuan blood.
That a far more advanced race had at one time a settlement on the
north-west coast is indicated by the cave-paintings and sculptures
discovered by Sir George Grey. In caves of the valley of the Glenelg
river, north-west Australia, about 60 m. inland and 20 m. south of
Prince Regent's river, are representations of human heads and bodies,
apparently of females clothed to the armpits, but all the faces are
without any indication of mouths. The heads are surrounded with a kind
of head-dress or halo and one wears a necklace. They are drawn in red,
blue and yellow. The figures are almost life-size. Rough sculptures,
too, were found, and two large square mounds formed of loose stones, and
yet perfect parallelograms in outline, placed due east and west. In the
same district Sir George Grey noticed among the blackfellows people he
describes as "almost white." On the Gascoyne river, too, were seen
natives of an olive colour, quite good-looking; and in the neighbourhood
of Sydney rock-carvings have been also found. All this points to a
temporary occupation by a race at a far higher stage of culture than any
known Australians, who were certainly never capable of executing even
the crude works of art described.
Physique.
Physically the typical Australian is the equal of the average European
in height, but is inferior in muscular development, the legs and arms
being of a leanness which is often emphasized by an abnormal corpulence.
The bones are delicately formed, and there is the lack of calf usual in
black races. The skull is abnormally thick and the cerebral capacity
small. The head is long and somewhat narrow, the forehead broad and
receding, with overhanging brows, the eyes sunken, large and black, the
nose thick and very broad at the nostrils. The mouth is large and the
lips thick but not protuberant. The teeth are large, white and strong.
In old age they appear much ground down; particularly is this the case
with women, who chew the different kinds of fibres, of which they make
nets and bags. The lower jaw is heavy; the cheekbones somewhat high, and
the chin small and receding. The neck is thicker and shorter than that
of most Europeans. The colour of the skin is a deep copper or chocolate,
never sooty black. When born, the Australian baby is of a much lighter
colour than its parents and remains so for about a week. The hair is
long, black or very dark auburn, wavy and sometimes curly, but never
woolly, and the men have luxuriant beards and whiskers, often of an
auburn tint, while the whole body inclines to hairiness. On the Balonne
river, Queensland, Baron Mikluho Maclay found a group of hairless
natives. The head hair is usually matted with grease and dirt, but when
clean is fine and glossy. The skin gives out an objectionable odour,
owing to the habit of anointing the body with fish-oils, but the true
fetor of the negro is lacking in the Australian. The voices of the
blackfellows are musical. Their mental faculties, though inferior to
those of the Polynesian race, are not contemptible. They have much
acuteness of perception for the relations of individual objects, but
little power of generalization. No word exists in their language for
such general terms as tree, bird or fish; yet they have invented a name
for every species of vegetable and animal they know. The grammatical
structure of some north Australian languages has a considerable degree
of refinement. The verb presents a variety of conjugations, expressing
nearly all the moods and tenses of the Greek. There is a dual, as well
as a plural form in the declension of verbs, nouns, pronouns and
adjectives. The distinction of genders is not marked, except in proper
names of men and women. All parts of speech, except adverbs, are
declined by terminational inflections. There are words for the
elementary numbers, one, two, three; but "four" is usually expressed by
"two-two." They have no idea of decimals. The number and diversity of
separate languages is bewildering.
Character.
In disposition the Australians are a bright, laughter-loving folk, but
they are treacherous, untruthful and hold human life cheaply. They have
no great physical courage. They are mentally in the condition of
children. None of them has an idea of what the West calls morality,
except the simple one of right or wrong arising out of property. A wife
will be beaten without mercy for unfaithfulness to her husband, but the
same wife will have had to submit to the first-night promiscuity, a
widespread revel which Roth shows is a regular custom in
north-west-central Queensland. A husband claims his wife as his absolute
property, but he has no scruple in handing her over for a time to
another man. There is, however, no proof that anything like community of
women or unlimited promiscuity exists anywhere. It would be wrong,
however, to conclude that moral considerations have led up to this state
of things. Of sexual morality, in the everyday sense of the word, there
is none. In his treatment of women the aboriginal may be ranked lower
than even the Fuegians. Yet the Australian is capable of strong
affections, and the blind (of whom there have always been a great
number) are cared for, and are often the best fed in a tribe.
Manners.
The Australians when first discovered were found to be living in almost
a prehistoric simplicity. Their food was the meat they killed in the
chase, or seeds and roots, grubs or reptiles. They never, in any
situation, cultivated the soil for any kind of food-crop. They never
reared any kind of cattle, or kept any domesticated animal except the
dog, which probably came over with them in their canoes. They nowhere
built permanent dwellings, but contented themselves with mere hovels for
temporary shelter. They neither manufactured nor possessed any chattels
beyond such articles of clothing, weapons, ornaments and utensils as
they might carry on their persons, or in the family store-bag for daily
use. In most districts both sexes are entirely nude. Sometimes in the
south during the cold season they wear a cloak of skin or matting,
fastened with a skewer, but open on the right-hand side.
When going through the bush they sometimes wear an apron of skins, for
protection merely. No headgear is worn, except sometimes a net to
confine the hair, a bunch of feathers, or the tails of small animals.
The breast or back, of both sexes, is usually tattooed, or rather,
scored with rows of hideous raised scars, produced by deep gashes made
at puberty. Their dwellings for the most part are either bowers, formed
of the branches of trees, or hovels of piled logs, loosely covered with
grass or bark, which they can erect in an hour, wherever they encamp.
But some huts of a more substantial form were seen by Captain Matthew
Flinders on the south-east coast in 1799, and by Captain King and Sir T.
Mitchell on the north-east, where they no longer appear. The ingenuity
of the race is mostly exhibited in the manufacture of their weapons of
warfare and the chase. While the use of the bow and arrow does not seem
to have occurred to them, the spear and axe are in general use, commonly
made of hard-wood; the hatchets of stone, and the javelins pointed with
stone or bone. The characteristic weapon of the Australian is the
boomerang (q.v.). Their nets, made by women, either of the tendons of
animals or the fibres of plants, will catch and hold the kangaroo or the
emu, or the very large fish of Australian rivers. Canoes of bent bark,
for the inland waters, are hastily prepared at need; but the inlets and
straits of the north-eastern sea-coast are navigated by larger canoes
and rafts of a better construction. As to food, they are omnivorous. In
central Queensland and elsewhere, snakes, both venomous and harmless,
are eaten, the head being first carefully smashed to pulp with a stone.
Tribal organization.
The tribal organization of the Australians was based on that of the
family. There were no hereditary or formally elected chiefs, nor was
there any vestige of monarchy. The affairs of a tribe were ruled by a
council of men past middle age. Each tribe occupied a recognized
territory, averaging perhaps a dozen square miles, and used a common
dialect. This district was subdivided between the chief heads of
families. Each family, or family group, had a dual organization which
has been termed (1) the Social, (2) the Local. The first was
matriarchal, inheritance being reckoned through the mother. No
territorial association was needed. All belonged to the same totem or
totemic class, and might be scattered throughout the tribe, though
subject to the same marriage laws. The second was patriarchal and of a
strictly territorial nature. A family or group of families had the same
hunting-ground, which was seldom changed, and descended through the
males. Thus, the sons inherited their fathers' hunting-ground, but bore
their mothers' name and therewith the right to certain women for wives.
The Social or matriarchal took precedence of the Local or patriarchal
organization. In many cases it arranged the assemblies and ceremonial of
the tribe; it regulated marriage, descent and relationship; it ordered
blood feuds, it prescribed the rites of hospitality and so on.
Nevertheless the Local side of tribal life in time tended to overwhelm
the Social and to organize the tribe irrespective of matriarchy, and
inclined towards hereditary chieftainship.
The most intricate and stringent rules existed as to marriage within and
without the totemic inter-marrying classes. There is said to be but one
exception to the rule that marriage must be contracted outside the totem
name. This exception was discovered by Messrs Spencer and Gillen among
the Arunta of central Australia, some allied septs, and their nearest
neighbours to the north, the Kaitish. This tribe may legally marry
within the totem, but always avoids such unions. Even in casual amours
these class laws were invariably observed, and the young man or woman
who defied them was punished, he with death, she with spearing or
beating. At the death of a man, his widows passed to his brother of the
same totem class. Such a system gave to the elder men of a tribe a
predominant position, and generally respect was shown to the aged. Laws
and penalties in protection of property were enforced by the tribe.
Thus, among some tribes of Western Australia the penalty for abducting
another's wife was to stand with leg extended while each male of the
tribe stuck his spear into it. Laws, however, did not protect the women,
who were the mere chattels of their lords. Stringent rules, too,
governed the food of women and the youth of both sexes, and it was only
after initiation that boys were allowed to eat of all the game the
forest provided. In every case of death from disease or unknown causes
sorcery was suspected and an inquest held, at which the corpse was asked
by each relative in succession the name of the murderer. This formality
having been gone through, the flight of the first bird which passed over
the body was watched, the direction being regarded as that in which the
sorcerer must be sought. Sometimes the nearest relative sleeps with his
head on the corpse, in the belief that he will dream of the murderer.
The most sacred duty an Australian had to perform was the avenging of
the death of a kinsman, and he was the object of constant taunts and
insults till he had done so. Cannibalism was almost universal, either in
the case of enemies killed in battle or when animal food was scarce. In
the Luritcha tribe it was customary when a child was in weak health to
kill a younger and healthy one and feed the weakling on its flesh.
Cannibalism seems also to have sometimes been in the nature of a funeral
observance, in honour of the deceased, of whom the relatives reverently
ate portions.
Religion.
They had no special forms of religious worship, and no idols. The
evidence on the question of whether they believed in a Supreme Being is
very contradictory. Messrs Spencer and Gillen appear to think that such
rudimentary idea of an All-Father as has, it is thought, been detected
among the blackfellows is an exotic growth fostered by contact with
missionaries. A.W. Howitt and Dr Roth appear to have satisfied
themselves of a belief, common to most tribes, in a mythic being (he has
different names in different tribes) having some of the attributes of a
Supreme Deity. But Mr Howitt finds in this being "no trace of a divine
nature, though under favourable conditions the beliefs might have
developed into an actual religion." Other authorities suggest that it is
going much too far to deny the existence of religion altogether, and
instance as proof of the divinity of the supra-normal anthropomorphic
beings of the Baiame class, the fact that the Yuin and cognate tribes
dance around the image of Daramulun (their equivalent of Baiame) and the
medicine men "invocate his name." A good deal perhaps depends on each
observer's view of what religion really is. The Australians believed in
spirits, generally of an evil nature, and had vague notions of an
after-life. The only idea of a god known to be entertained by them seems
to be that of the Euahlayi and Kamilaori tribe, Baiame, a gigantic old
man lying asleep for ages, with his head resting on his arm, which is
deep in the sand. He is expected one day to awake and eat up the world.
Researches go to show that Baiame has his counterpart in other tribes,
the myth varying greatly in detail. But the Australians are
distinguished by possessing elaborate initiatory ceremonies.
Circumcision of one or two kinds was usual in the north and south, but
not in Western Australia or on the Murray river. In South Australia boys
had to undergo three stages of initiation in a place which women were
forbidden to approach. At about ten they were covered with blood from
head to foot, several elder men bleeding themselves for the purpose. At
about twelve or fourteen circumcision took place and (or sometimes as an
alternative on the east coast) a front tooth was knocked out, to the
accompaniment of the booming of the bullroarer (q.v.). At the age of
puberty the lad was tattooed or scarred with gashes cut in back,
shoulders, arms and chest, and the septum of the nose was pierced. The
gashes varied in patterns for the different tribes. Girls, too, were
scarred at puberty and had teeth knocked out, &c. The ceremonies--known
to the Whites under the native generic term for initiatory rites,
_Bora_,--were much the same throughout Australia. Polygamy was rare, due
possibly to the scarcity of women.[5] Infanticide was universally
recognized. The mode of disposing of the dead varied. Among some tribes
a circular grave was dug and the body placed in it with its face towards
the east, and a high mound covered with bark or thatch raised over it.
In New South Wales the body is often burned and the ashes buried. On the
Lower Murray the body is placed on a platform of sticks and left to
decay. Young children are often not buried for months, but are carried
about by their mothers. At the funeral of men there is much mourning,
the female relatives cutting or tearing their hair off and plastering
their faces with clay, but for women no public ceremonies took place.
The numbers of the native Australians are steadily diminishing. It was
estimated that when first visited by Europeans the native population
did not much exceed 200,000. A remnant of the race exists in each of the
provinces, while a few tribes still wander over the interior.
AUTHORITIES.--Dr A.W. Howitt, _The Native Tribes of South-east
Australia_ (1904) and _On the Organization of Australian Tribes_
(1889); G.T. Bettany, _The Red, Brown and Black Men of Australia_
(1890); B. Spencer and F.J. Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
Australia_ (1899); _The Northern Tribes of Central Australia_ (London,
1904); E.M. Curr, _The Australian Race_ (3 vols., 1886-1887); G.W.
Rusden, _History of Australia_ (1897); _Australasia_, British Empire
Series (Kegan Paul & Co., 1900); A.R. Wallace, _Australasia_ (1880,
new ed., 2 vols., 1893-1895); Rev. Lorimer Fison and Dr A.W. Howitt,
_Kamilaroi and Kurnai, Group Marriage and Relationship_ (Melbourne,
1880); H. Ling Roth, _Queensland Aborigines_ (Brisbane, 1897); Carl
Lumholtz, _Among Cannibals_ (1889); Walter E. Roth, _Ethnological
Studies among the North-west-central Queensland Aborigines_ (London,
1897); Mrs K. Langloh Parker, _Euahlayi Tribes_ (1905); F.J. Gillen,
_Notes on Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the Macdonnell
Ranges belonging to the Arunta Tribe_; J.E. Frazer, "The Beginnings of
Religion and Totemism among the Australian Aborigines," _Fortnightly
Review_, July 1905; N.W. Thomas, _Native Tribes of Australia_ (1907).
(C. Ar.)