EDUCATION
There are no schools in wild Australia, yet it must not be thought that
the children receive no education. On the contrary their education
begins at a very early age and is continued well into manhood and
womanhood. Up to the age of seven or eight boys and girls play together
and remain under their mother's care, but a separation then takes place
and schooldays, if we may call them by that name, begin. The boys leave
the society of the girls and sleep in the bachelor's camp. They begin to
accompany their fathers on long tramps abroad. They are taught the names
and qualities of the different plants and animals which they see, and
the laws and legends of their tribe. Lessons of reverence and obedience
to their elders are instilled into their young minds, and they have
impressed upon them that they must never attempt to set up their own
will against the superior will of the tribe. They are taught to use
their eyes, and to take note of the footprints of the different animals
and birds, and eventually to track them to their haunts. In this art of
tracking many of them become wonderfully skilled. They will often say
how long it is since a certain track was made, and in the case of a
human foot-mark will often tell whose it is. They will say whether the
traveller was a man or a woman, and in some cases have been known to
say, quite correctly, that the man was knock-kneed or slightly lame.
Trackers employed by the police have often traced a man's footsteps over
stony and rocky ground, being able to tell, from the displacing of a
stone here and there, that the man whom they were seeking had passed
that way. On one occasion a clergyman was travelling in the bush when he
was met by an aboriginal boy who told him that a man had gone along that
way earlier in the day, had been thrown from his horse about five miles
further on but had not been hurt very much because he had got up after a
few minutes and had gone after his horse; the man, however, was slightly
lame, and the horse had cast a shoe. The same evening the clergyman met
the man in question and found that the native's account of what happened
was correct in every detail. He had gained his information entirely from
careful observation of the tracks.
So wonderfully is this power of seeing trained that every object is most
carefully noted as it is passed. The foot-marks of an emu or kangaroo on
their way to water, the head of a wild turkey standing above the grass
some two hundreds yards away, will be pointed out to the purblind white
man who has never learned to see. If one of the lessons of life is to
use the eyes the aboriginal teacher teaches his lessons well.
The children of wild Australia are taught to use their ears. They will
start up at the first faint stirring of the leaves which tells that a
storm of wind will soon be down upon them or that an opossum or parrot
is awakening in the tree. Their ears, too, will notice the slight
rustling of the grass and the stealthy footsteps on the ground which
tell that some enemy is near. It takes long and careful training to
bring the power of hearing to such perfection as this.
They are taught to use their hands and to make and use the weapons,
etc., of which you will read in the next chapter. What wonderful natural
history lessons, too, theirs must be. The habits of all the various
animals are learned out in the wild, and numerous stories about them are
told. The traditions of all the places they come to are carefully
narrated by the older men, and in this way a faithful adherence to the
rules and customs of the tribe is ensured. Wonderful are the tales of
their old ancestors which will be narrated around the camp fires at
night, whilst in the day time excursions to some of the sacred spots,
whose legends were told over night, may be made. So in one way or
another a remarkable reverence for antiquity--for the dim and shadowy
(though, to the aboriginal, very real) heroes of the "alcheringa," or
distant dream age in which these old heroes lived, and for the aged will
be instilled and the children grow up in ways of reverence and obedience
which are often sadly lacking in more favoured lands.
Sometimes the growing lad at about the age of twelve or thirteen will be
sent away to school, that is he will go to stay with some neighbouring
friendly tribe whose old men will carefully complete the education
which his father and the men of his own tribe began.
But lessons are taught not only by word of mouth but by means of sacred
rites which the young lad at about the age of fourteen is allowed to
witness for the first time. In these sacred performances the deeds of
some doughty ancestor are portrayed, and the boy as he gazes upon them,
and listens to the answers given to the questions he is allowed to ask,
learns more and more of the rules and traditions of his tribe. No women
and children are ever allowed to be present at these solemnities. The
tribal secrets which they depict may be known only to the men. A woman
or girl who dared to venture near or pry into them would have her eyes
put out or be killed at once by the men.
Before the young lad can be allowed to attend he needs to be solemnly
initiated into his tribe. He is taken away into the bush and there
undergoes a kind of savage Confirmation. A front tooth is knocked out,
and the body is gashed with sharp stones. In some tribes a new gash is
given as each new secret is imparted. Into the wounds thus made ashes or
the down of the eagle hawk are rubbed to make the wound heal. The actual
result is a raised scar which lasts on through life.
Sometimes what is called a Fire Ceremony is also performed to test the
power of endurance of those who are henceforth to be regarded as men. A
large fire is lighted and then the hot embers are strewn on the ground.
Over these a few green boughs are placed and the boys are made to lie
down upon them until permission is given them by their elders to rise.
The boughs, of course, keep them from being actually burned, but the
heat of the fire is very great and they are often nearly suffocated with
the smoke. Should the faintest cry escape one of them or should they
fail to lie perfectly still they would be regarded as weak and
effeminate and unworthy to be "made men," and their admission into the
full privileges of the tribe would be delayed. These fire ceremonies are
a very severe test of their power of endurance. The native lad will
suffer a great deal rather than be thought soft and womanish, and there
are few who fail to stand the severe test which is here demanded of
them.