THE BLACKS
If you ask what sort of a race the Blacks of Australia are, nine people
out of ten will immediately answer your question with that prompt
assurance which no one ever ventures to bring to bear on any subject,
except one about which he knows nothing and has thought less, and will
tell you that they are physically and intellectually the most degraded
race in the world.
There being no fixed standard to apply to the different races of the
world for the purpose of gauging their physical and intellectual
merits, we can only do so by comparing them with each other. When
compared with those nations of the Old World who are universally
admitted to have reached the highest point of civilisation as yet
known, the Australian Black is, of course, a very low specimen of the
human race indeed. But compared with the Digger Indians, the Bushmen of
South Africa, and the inhabitants of not a few of the islands of the
Pacific Ocean, he at once assumes a different aspect. I had thought of
comparing him to some of those savages by no means extinct in the Old
Country at the present day; but the comparison seems more than usually
odious, and I will pass on.
From a physical point of view, many of the Australian Blacks are
exceedingly fine specimens of humanity, and possess great muscular
strength. In swimming, diving, climbing, picking up and following a
trail, they are a match for any race under the sun; and in running
and jumping many of them would give a good deal of trouble to a
professional athlete. The extraordinary art of throwing a boomerang is
peculiar to them, and with a spear they are not to be surpassed.
It will be objected that these are a very low class of accomplishments,
displaying, with the exception of the boomerang, no inventive genius
whatever. This is quite true, but it is equally true that they answer
the end in view, which is more than can be said of many more elaborate
contrivances; and, as a rule, the simplest means of obtaining an
object are the best. Now the object of an Australian Black, in common
with most of his fellow-creatures, is to provide himself with food;
and it has been frequently brought forward as a proof of great want
of intelligence, that he has never invented a bow and arrow for this
purpose. But necessity, we all know, is the mother of invention, and
so long as a Black can with perfect ease kill as many birds and beasts
as he wants with sticks and spears, it is hardly fair to accuse him of
want of intelligence for not employing the more complicated appliances
which are necessary in countries where food is less plentiful and less
easily obtained. We might with equal justice and discernment abuse the
inhabitants of Upper Egypt, where it rains once in five years, for not
having invented umbrellas; or the Esquimaux for not using refrigerators
to preserve their meat. That the Blacks are by no means deficient in
natural ingenuity is proved by the stone-headed tomahawks, heavy wooden
swords, and bone-tipped spears which are in use amongst the wildest
of the tribes. No doubt, when game becomes too wild or too scarce to
be easily killed with sticks and stones, they will invent some more
ingenious way of procuring it.
[Illustration: BLACK-FELLOW PREPARING TO GO UP A TREE.]
The countenances of these niggers, often very pleasing, are seldom
devoid of a good deal of intelligence, and after a short intercourse
with civilisation are highly susceptible of that expression of finished
rascality which is usually supposed to be a peculiarity of the white
man. Their sense of humour and perception of the ridiculous is
exquisitely keen. A cow tumbling head over heels across a log in the
long grass, a man looking for a pipe which he has got in his mouth, or
a dog in search of food upsetting something on to its own head, and
running away like the deuce, with nothing after it, will make a black
fellow laugh for a week afterwards whenever he thinks of it. Nothing
with the ghost of a joke in it escapes him, and finer shades of humour
that are entirely lost upon many well-educated whites will be instantly
and thoroughly appreciated by him.
We had a black fellow on the station, by name Wakarra, who was as
pleasant a companion for a day’s ride as could be wished. It is not too
much to say his manners were those of a perfect gentleman. No amount of
hurry ever made him forget himself for an instant, no scolding made him
sulky, and no kindness made him disrespectful. The graceful ease with
which he used to remove his battered hat to any ladies that happened
to be staying on the station, was a sight that might have moved an Old
Country swell to tears of admiration. He learned to read with ease, and
had a most surprising faculty for asking questions. One day he wanted
to know how the sun set and rose. I explained to him that the earth
went round, which he understood perfectly; but when I told him how fast
it went, he thought for a bit, and asked why the trees and houses and
things did not all fall off? I told him that they were stuck on with
a kind of invisible glue, which only partially allayed his thirst for
information. He is certainly rather an extraordinary Black, and perhaps
hardly a fair specimen of his race. But I never saw one upon whose
education so much pains had been bestowed; and most likely here, as
elsewhere, there are just as good fish in the sea as ever came out of
it.
In acquiring the rudiments of civilisation, such as drinking, lying,
thieving, and twisting red handkerchiefs round their heads, the Blacks
show themselves to be very apt pupils. But in all the higher branches
of social science they are very backward. For instance, when their
relations become incapacitated by age or disease from following the
wanderings of the tribe, they have a nasty low habit of beating in
their heads with a club, instead of gently assisting the course of
nature by giving them little or nothing to eat, a method which I have
occasionally seen pursued with the greatest success by the inhabitants
of more civilised countries. Then, again, they are extremely particular
about their wives, and resent any interference with them on the part
of the rest of the tribe, with a violence which civilised society of
modern times has branded as being in the worst possible taste.
It has often been said that it is impossible to teach any sort of
religion to the Australian Blacks. I never heard of any great exertions
being made in this direction; but undoubtedly the great obstacle to
success would be not so much a black fellow’s want of intelligence, as
his unrestrained sense of the ridiculous. One of our poets has declared
that
“Life is a jest, and all things show it”;
and seeing that it is impossible at the outset to impress a nigger with
the solemnity of religion, there is great likelihood that he will fall
in with the views of the poet, and laugh at it immoderately.
I remember once trying to give a fairly intelligent Black some idea of
a future state. In the course of conversation he pointed up to the sky,
and said:
“Big one Master stop up there? Where you been see Him that One?”
“Yowi” (yes), I replied, “you better believe it. By and by you see Him
that One too.”
After a pause he again inquired, “That One got a store up there?”
Now the possession of a store implies unlimited power to a black
fellow, so I promptly replied:
“My word! altogether big one store up there. Plenty flour, plenty
tobacco; supposin’ you good one nigger, by and by you get plenty up
there.”
His next remark was, “I say! you go along o’ that One by and by?”
“Yowi,” said I, “mine think it. By and by go along o’ that One, get
wings, fly about close up like a bird.”
This appeared to interest him immensely, without striking him as
the least odd. But when I told him that if he behaved well he would
go there too, he had barely time to say “Gammon!” with an amount of
expression that no one but a nigger can put into that one word, before
rolling on to the ground in perfect convulsions of laughter. That a
white man should go to heaven seemed perfectly natural to him; but the
idea of a black fellow by any possibility getting there too, struck him
as so utterly funny that he went on laughing for a week after whenever
he saw me.
The Blacks that have received any religious instruction generally
sneak up to you in the towns and offer to parade their knowledge for a
consideration. “I say! you give it me one fellow sixpence, plenty mine
yabber-yabber--belief! I say! Glass of whiskey--Our Father,” and so on.
The most notable instance of anything like success attending the
attempt to proselytise a Black, was that of an old nigger who once
observed, in answer to some inquiry as to his views of a future state,
that, “supposin’ he was a bad nigger, altogether debbil-debbil come and
take him off.”
Their ordinary creed is very simple. “Directly me bung (die) me jump up
white feller,” and this seems to be the height of their ambition.
They have some sort of religion or superstition of their own. When a
warrior of celebrity dies, or succumbs to a blow on the head from a
nullah, they skin him with the greatest care, and, after eating as
much of him as they feel inclined for, they pick his bones beautifully
clean and wrap them up in his skin. Instances have been known where
Blacks have carried these relics about with them in all the wanderings
of their tribe for many years. Sometimes they embalm their chiefs,
but very rarely one would suppose, as up to the present time very few
of these mummies have ever fallen into the hands of white men. One of
them is now in the Queensland Museum at Brisbane, and, according to the
account of the tribe from which it came, it is over 200 years old.
Whether it would be possible to teach Christianity to the Australian
Blacks, or not, I do not pretend to say; but I am very certain that it
would be far better to begin by teaching them to behave as respectable
members of the community. By the time that they have learned to refrain
from smashing the skulls of decrepit relations, from killing a man
simply because he has some article about him which they wish for,
and from eating him afterwards if they are hungry, it will be quite
time enough to direct their attention to a future existence. The task
of persuading an average nigger that punishment follows crime, and
prosperity is the reward of virtue, will be found quite arduous enough
to satisfy the most zealous of missionaries, even though it be the
business of these admirable men to “turn black into white,” after a
fashion. Having, at any rate, got him to comprehend that there are
certain rules that he cannot transgress with impunity, and certain
enjoyments that he can only obtain by exertion, he will be more fit to
be initiated into the mysteries of Christianity than when he had no
idea of right and wrong.
A more lamentable example of misdirected zeal than is afforded by the
South Sea Islanders cannot be imagined. If we may take as examples
the large number of Kanakas who come over to Australia every year,
we are obliged to conclude that any teaching that they get from the
missionaries does them infinitely more harm than good. No one will have
anything to do with a “missionary boy,” if he can by any means get
another one. We cannot for a moment allow the blame of this to rest
on the religion taught, and we should be sorry to think that it was
entirely the fault of those who teach it. Experience proves that it has
nothing whatever to do with the Kanakas themselves; for, until they are
persuaded to become Christians, they are an orderly, contented, and
industrious race. The fault, then, must lie in the manner of teaching.
Religion, someone says, makes an excellent roof, but a very bad
floor; and it is the height of folly to try and teach Christianity
to a savage before he has any idea of those fundamental laws which,
quite independent of any revealed religion, govern the welfare of a
community. It is not only teaching him to run before he can walk, but
expecting him to jump over obstacles at every other step which, from
the earliest ages, have brought the most eminent divines to grief. More
than this, it is putting an exceedingly dangerous weapon into the hands
of an inexperienced and mischievous child.
For example, suppose that you make a savage understand that the God
whom you are teaching him to serve has bade all the rich in this world
to sell all that they have, and give it to the poor. What will be the
effect upon his mind? An earthly paradise of rum, blankets, and tobacco
is at once opened up before him; and having most probably gone to sleep
the night before without even one of these luxuries, he must inevitably
arrive at one of two conclusions, either that you are telling him
a lie, or that there are a number of rich people around him sadly
ignorant of their duties.
Most probably the latter is the view to which he will incline, and,
fully persuaded that he is only promoting the gospel of peace on earth
and goodwill towards men, he will set off to the nearest plantation,
and give the owner of it a lesson in practical Christianity by removing
as many articles of value as he can, and retiring to distribute them
amongst his friends. Be this as it may, one broad truth remains, that
in attempting to convert a South Sea Islander into a Christian, the
missionaries rarely fail to convert an innocent and industrious savage
into an idle and worthless scoundrel.
Nearly every station in Queensland has one or two black boys employed
on it as stock-riders, in which capacity they are very useful, as they
soon learn to ride well, and are invaluable in tracking lost cattle and
sheep. As a rule, however, they are not much use after they get about
twenty years old. By that time they have begun to find out that they
are useful; and as their idea of the value of their services seldom
corresponds with that of their employer, they generally get sent away.
Having once been employed by white men, they would instantly be killed
if they tried to rejoin their tribe; so they generally take to loafing
about the nearest town, and sooner or later die of drink.
There is a school now, down in Mackay, to teach Blacks to read and
write, and get their living by some sort of work. It has hardly been
started long enough to see how it will work. At present the only
place where Blacks are employed in any numbers is upon the Mackay
tobacco-plantations, and their being so is a most unqualified nuisance
to the district. Of course any effort to induce the Blacks to work for
their living, instead of spearing other people’s cattle and picnicking
on their own relations, deserves the highest praise. But we solemnly
protest against their being turned loose on society before their
education is completed; and we infinitely prefer having to deal with
an entirely wild Black than with one who has imbibed a great deal of
mischief, and very little good, from a temporary residence amongst
white men. The services of these Blacks are only required for a few
months during the year on the plantations, and they are then allowed to
wander off into the Bush, and amuse themselves until the busy season
comes round again. Familiarity having, of course, bred contempt, and
cunning taken the place of timidity, they no longer scruple to turn the
hitherto sacred runs into their Happy Hunting-grounds. Picnics on the
cattle camps, and wild chases amongst if not after the cattle, form the
principal amusements of these emancipated scholars. The results are
appalling. We have all heard of swine urged by devils running violently
down a steep place and being lost to their owners in the sea. Here in
the Antipodes we observe that our cattle, under similar circumstances,
pursue an opposite but equally disastrous course, and are lost to us in
the mountain ranges.
It is annoying to go and muster a camp where a few days before you had
been gloating over thirty or forty fat bullocks, and to find that the
Blacks have been scouring the whole country around, and frightening the
cattle into fits; so that instead of thirty fat bullocks you probably
only find half-a-dozen wretched crow-baits, with staring coats and
protruding ribs, and altogether such a played-out appearance, you can
hardly believe they are the same animals that a few days before you
watched swaggering up to camp, with that satisfied, well-to-do air
that so endears a fat bullock to the eye of his owner. In the more
settled districts along the coast of Southern Queensland, and in New
South Wales and Victoria, the Blacks have given up spearing cattle,
and, beyond frightening them occasionally, do not do much harm. But in
the north and interior of Queensland they are still very troublesome,
and never lose a chance of killing cattle and horses, and spearing
any unfortunate shepherd or traveller if they get a chance. They will
follow a man for days, just keeping out of his sight, until they get
an opportunity for killing him. Sometimes, when they feel more than
usually cheerful, even the half-tame Blacks in the settled districts
cannot resist the temptation of spearing a traveller. It is not long
since they killed two South Sea Islanders on the range about fifteen
miles from our head station. For the purpose of repressing this kind
of joviality, there are native police-stations, at tolerably wide
intervals, all over the country. At each of these are stationed a few
black troopers, under the charge of a white man. These troopers become
perfect devils for hunting down and killing the wild tribes from which
they have themselves been taken when young. The duty of the white man
who commands them is a very unpleasant one. Whenever the wild Blacks
in the neighbourhood become troublesome, and take to spearing cattle,
or otherwise misbehave themselves, it is his business to sally out
with his mounted troopers, and “disperse” them, the meaning of which
word is well known all through the colony. If it can be proved that
in “dispersing” a mob of Blacks he has killed a single one except in
self-defence, he is liable by the laws of the country to be hanged. On
the other hand, he knows perfectly well that unless he manages to shoot
down a decent number of them before they can escape, his services will
soon be dispensed with. The Government will then replace him by a man
who is better able to understand the peculiar form of justice which
hangs a man for being detected in carrying out his recognised duty. It
is very difficult to know what to do with the Blacks. It seems unjust
to drive them out of a country to which they have at least as good a
right as we have. On the other hand, we know that if they are allowed
to remain, they take every opportunity of killing us and our cattle. It
is impossible to tame them unless they are caught very young, and even
then they are not always to be relied on. Whether the Blacks deserve
any mercy at the hands of the pioneering squatters is an open question,
but that they get none is certain. They are a doomed race, and before
many years they will be completely wiped out of the land.
A gentleman who shall be nameless, but who once resided at a place
well known as the Long Lagoon, in the interior of Queensland, is
still famous for the tremendous “haul” of Blacks which he made in one
day. They had been giving him a great deal of trouble, and had lately
killed four of his shepherds in succession. This was past a joke, and
he decided that the niggers required something really startling to
keep them quiet, and he hit upon the following device, which everyone
must admit was sufficiently startling. One day, when he knew that a
large mob of Blacks were watching his movements, he packed a large
dray with rations, and set off with it from the head station, as if
he was going the rounds of the shepherds’ huts. When he got opposite
to the Long Lagoon, one of the wheels came off the dray, and down it
went with a crash. This appeared to annoy him considerably; but after
looking pensively at it for some time, he seemed to conclude that there
was nothing to be done, so he unhitched the horses and led them back
to the station. No sooner had he disappeared than, of course, all
the Blacks came up to the dray to see what was in it. To their great
delight, it contained a vast supply of flour, beef, and sugar. With
appetites sharpened by a prolonged abstinence from such delicacies,
they lost no time in carrying the rations down to the waterside, and
forthwith devoured them as only a Black-fellow can.
Alas for the greediness of the savage! alas for the cruelty of his
white brother! The rations contained about as much strychnine as
anything else, and not one of the mob escaped. When they awoke in the
morning they were all dead corpses. More than a hundred Blacks were
stretched out by this ruse of the owner of the Long Lagoon. In a dry
season, when the water sinks low, their skulls are occasionally to be
found half buried in the mud.
As a rule, however, few people are ambitious of indulging in such
wholesale slaughter, and, when the Blacks are troublesome, it is
generally considered sufficient punishment to go out and shoot one or
two. They are easily discouraged in their wild state, especially by
anything that they cannot understand. Not very long after this station
was first taken up, while the wild Blacks were still very bad round
about, my partner Rice was digging one day in the garden. Suddenly he
became aware that half-a-dozen of these “Myalls,” as they are called,
were creeping towards him through the long grass. Armed with spears and
boomerangs, they were evidently on anything but hospitable thoughts
intent. Rice waited until they got about fifty yards off, and then, as
they stood up ready to sling their spears at him, he suddenly pointed
his spade at them like a gun. Two warriors fell flat down on the spot
from sheer fright, upsetting a third one who was just about starting to
flee. Two of the remaining three tried to run away so fast that they
hardly made any progress at all, and the last one, while scattering
a Parthian glance at the object of terror in his rear, ran with awful
violence against a gigantic gum-tree. The prevailing idea of all six
of them seemed to be a wish for seclusion, and in an incredibly short
space of time they had all picked themselves up and disappeared over
the horizon in a cloud of dust.
Some of the northern Blacks, however, are not so easily frightened.
They are a much finer race than those in the interior and the south,
and will stand up and fight like anything.
There seems to be an inherent dislike in all Blacks to anything like
regular work. They will hit out like Trojans for about a week, and then
they cave in, and declare they are sick. A few days’ spell and the
diversion of a kangaroo-hunt will sometimes induce them to try another
term of treadmill; but, as a rule, they never stick long to any heavy
work. Sometimes, when they see any work going on in the Bush, the
half-tame ones come up and offer to help, and are quite content with
half a stick of tobacco and a good feed for a day’s work. Sometimes
they content themselves with criticising, without offering to assist.
There was a party (I use the word in its plural sense) putting up a
telegraph-line not far from here. One day a Black-fellow sauntered up
to them with the easy air of an owner of the soil, the freedom of his
movements being unhampered by anything but a red cotton handkerchief
twisted round his head. Securing the loan of an atom of tobacco
from the superintendent, he put it in his mouth and sat down on a
log. Presently he glanced contemptuously at the telegraph-wire high
overhead, and remarked:
“Altogether----fool mine think it white feller.”
This did not look promising for an extended conversation. The
superintendent, however, had the curiosity to ask why; whereupon the
child of Nature pointed to the telegraph-posts and wires and said:
“You think it bullock stop along o’ that one paddock? My word! you
plenty stoopid!”
And then, without listening to the infuriated official’s explanation
that it was not a paddock that he was putting up at all, the Black-man
sauntered off again into the Bush.
They are incurable nomads, these Blacks, and never stay long in one
place. They wander about the country in mobs, invariably accompanied
by a vast army of the most wretched-looking, mange-stricken dogs. They
camp for a while where there is a good supply of food, and when that is
done they move on. A couple of hours after they have camped they have
completed as good a house as a Black-fellow ever wants, by stripping
a few sheets of bark off the nearest trees and propping them up with
saplings.
They are passionately fond of tobacco, and the children begin to smoke,
when tobacco is plentiful, literally before they can walk. I have often
seen a little object, not many months old, slung over its mother’s
shoulder, puffing away at a short pipe stuck in its mouth.
Away in the far north, round about the Herbert and the Cooktown
district, numbers of white men are “put down” by the Blacks every year.
A few months ago the manager of Rocklands, a station on the Herbert
water adjoining ours, was killed; and many a solitary traveller who
disappears in the lonely wilds of the Bush of Northern Queensland
doubtless owes his death to these black devils, who are always lurking
in his tracks, waiting for a favourable chance to kill him. The
traveller in the north carries his life in his hand. Any day he is
liable to be attacked by the Blacks; and at night when he lies down,
he can never be sure that his awakening may not be a spear through his
ribs or a blow on the head from a tomahawk.
It is very seldom that the Blacks will attack a man on horseback.
They will sooner follow him for days, until, perhaps, they get a
chance at him when he is off his horse, stooping down to drink at a
water-hole. Upon one occasion a traveller was riding quickly round the
corner of a scrub, when he came suddenly on to a camp of wild Blacks.
His horse propped short, and sent him flying over its head right into
the middle of them. If he had displayed the slightest signs of alarm he
would most certainly have been instantly killed; instead of which he
burst into wild shrieks of laughter, as if he had done it for a joke,
which so delighted the Blacks that they all began to laugh too, and let
him go unmolested, after helping him to catch his horse.
[Illustration: A BLACK GIN AT HOME.]