THE DAY’S MARCH
Orders of the day—Selection of camp site—Feminine water
carriers—Great variety of bark vessels—Skin water-bag—Bailers
and drinking cups—Natural water supplies—Water-bearing
trees—Modes of drinking.
“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.
[Illustration: _PLATE XII_
Juvenile Types.
1. Full-face, female, Wongkanguru tribe.
2. Profile, female, Aluridja tribe.]
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.