COSTUMES AND WEAPONS
I have seen a coloured king simply smirking with pride, in what he
considered modern full dress--a short shirt and an old tall hat.
And I suppose, as far as actual clothing went, it was an advance on the
old-time costume of paint and feathers. A black woman's needle was a
little bone from the leg of an emu, pointed. Her thread was sinews of
opossums, kangaroos, and emus; that was all that was necessary for her
plain sewing, which was plain indeed.
Her fancy work consisted of netting dillee, goolays, or miniature
hammocks to sling her baby across her back, or, failing a baby, her
mixed possessions, from food to feathers; her larder and wardrobe in
one.
Her costume being simple in the extreme did not require much room. It
consisted of a goomillah, which was a string wound round the waist,
made of opossum sinews, and in front, hanging down for about a foot,
were twisted strands of opossum hair. A bone, or on state occasions a
green twig, stuck through the cartilage of her nose, a string net over
her hair, or perhaps only a fillet, or a kangaroo's tooth fastened to
her front lock, gum balls dried on side-locks, an opossum's hair
armlet, and perhaps a reed bead necklet and a polished black skin,
toilette complete, unless for certain ceremonies a further decoration
of flowers or down feathers was required.
The principal article of the man's dress was called waywah. It was a
belt, about six inches wide, made of twisted sinews and hair, with four
tufts about eighteen inches long hanging back and front and at each
side from it, made of narrow strips of kangaroo or paddy melon skins.
For warmth in winter they would wrap themselves in their opossum-skin
rugs. Sometimes both sexes adorned themselves with strings of kangaroo
teeth fixed into gum, in which a little hole was made, round their
heads and necks--yumbean they called them; or forehead bands with
hanging kangaroo teeth, which were called gnooloogail.
Pine gum they rolled into small egg-shaped balls, warmed them and stuck
them in dozens all over their heads, where they would be left until
they wore off, hairdressings being only an occasional duty. The gum
they used for sticking the kangaroo's teeth was that of the Mubboo, or
beefwood tree.
Sometimes wongins were worn; they consisted of cords round the neck and
under the arms, crossing the chest with a shell pendant at the centre
of the cross. A shell is still a most prized ornament.
The corroboree dress is one of paint; the feature of it being its
design, a man can gain quite a tribal reputation for being an
originator of decorative designs.
Their original paint colourings were white, red, and yellow;
occasionally they said they got some sort of blue by barter, but very
occasionally, as it came from very far. White was from Gidya ash, or
gypsum; red and yellow, ochre clay; but they also got both red and
yellow from burning at a certain stage certain trees, gooroolay for
red; the charcoal, instead of being black, having red and yellow
tinges. But since the white people came the blue bag has put yellow out
of fashion, and raddle is used for the red.
Their opossum rugs used to have designs scratched on the skin sides and
also painted patterns, some say tribal marks, others just to look
pretty and distinguish each their own.
Feathers tied into little bunches and fastened on to small wooden
skewers were stuck upright in the hair at corroborees, also swansdown
fluffed in puff balls over the heads.
The Gooumoorh, or corroboree, is a sort of black fellow's opera; as to
the musical part, rather, as some one found an oratorio, a thing of
high notes and vain repetition.
The stage effects of corroborees are sometimes huge sheets of bark
fastened on to poles; these sheets of bark are painted in different
designs and colours, something like Moorish embroideries. Sometimes
there is a huge imitation of an alligator made of logs plastered over
with earth and painted in stripes of different colours, a piece of wood
cut open stuck in at one end as a gaping mouth. This alligator
corroboree is generally indicative of a Boorah, or initiation ceremony,
being near at hand. Sometimes the stage effects are high painted poles
merely.
At the back of the goomboo, or stage, are large fires; in the front, in
a semicircle, sit the women as orchestra, and the audience; a fire at
each end of the semicircle, as a sort of footlights. The music of the
orchestra is made by some beating time on rolled-up opossum rugs, and
some clicking two boomerangs together. The time is faultless. The tunes
are monotonous, but rhythmical and musical, curiously well suited to
the stage and layers. These last have a very weird look as they steal
Pout of the thick scrub, out of the darkness, quickly one after
another, dancing round the goomboo in time to the music, their
grotesquely painted figures and feather-decorated heads lit up by the
flickering lights of the fires around.
As the dancing gets faster the singing gets louder, every muscle of the
dancers seems strained, and the wonder is the voices do not crack. Just
as you think they must, the dancing slows again; the voices die away,
to swell out once more with renewed vigour when the fires are built up
again and again; the same dance is gone through, time after time--one
night one dance, or, for that matter, many nights one dance.
The dancers sometimes make dumb-show of hunts, fights, slaughters, the
women sometimes translating the actions in the songs; sometimes the
words seem to have nothing to do with them, and the dances only a
series of steps illustrating nothing.
Corroborees seem to fit in with the indescribable mystery of the bush.
That the spirit of the bush is mystery makes it so difficult to
describe beyond bald realism, otherwise it seems an effort to seize the
intangible. Poor Barcroft Boake got something of the mystery into
words.
If an Australian Wagner could be born we might hope for a musical
adaptation of corroborees. Wagner was essentially the exponent of
folk-lore music, wherein must be expressed the fundamentals of human
passion unrefined.
The most celebrated weapon is probably the boomerang the most
celebrated kind to whites, though not most useful to blacks, is the
Bubberab, or returning boomerang. These are made chiefly of Gidya and
Myall. Here these 'Come backs' are never carved, are more curved than
the ordinary boomerang, and were greased, rubbed with charred grass,
and warmed before being used, so that the slightest warp would be
straightened. It is marvellous the accuracy with which an adept can
throw one of these weapons, locating it on the exact place to which he
wishes it to return.
Gidya is the favourite wood for boomerangs. They are first roughly
shaped, then thrown into water and soaked for two or three days; taken
out and made into the proper shape, rubbed with charred grass, greased
well, and carved in various designs with an opossum's tooth.
Boomerangs have many uses--in peace two clicked together as a musical
instrument, as a war weapon, and as a weapon in the chase. Its last and
rapidly approaching use will be as a curio for collectors.
Billah, or spears, are made of Belah (swamp oak) or Gidya. These too
are cut roughly first and thrown into water, then cut a little more,
thrown into water again, and so day after day until finished. Sometimes
they are carved with a running featherstitch-like pattern from end to
end, sometimes have bingles, or barbs, cut down one or both sides; some
barbarous things with barbs pointing both ways, so that they could be
neither pushed out nor drawn through a wound; some are plain, painted
at each end or darkened with poison tips.
Billah are war weapons; a larger kind called Moornin are used for
spearing emu.
Woggarahs, the hatchet-shaped weapons, were made of Myall, Gidya, and
other woods, carved as were boomerangs, each carver usually having a
favourite design by which his weapons were recognised.
Booreens, or shields, were of three kinds: a narrow kind made of
hardwood, a broad flat kind of Kurrajong, and a medium-sized one of
Birah, or whitewood, all painted in coloured designs. It is wonderful
the way a man can defend himself single-handed against a number of men,
he having only a narrow shield, the only defence he is allowed when he
has to stand his trial for a breach of the laws.
Their tomahawks, or Cumbees, were of dark-green stone, of which there
is none in this district, so it must have been obtained by barter, as
in the first instance were the flat, light Booreens from the Queensland
side, and the grass-tree gum from the Narrabri mountains side, for
which Gidya boomerangs were given in exchange.
The stone tomahawks have a handle put over one end of the stone, gummed
on with beefwood gum, then drawn together under the stone, crossed, and
the two ends tied together as a handle, with sinews of emus, opossums,
or kangaroos.
Muggils, or stone knives, are just sharpened pieces of stone.
Moorooleh are plain waddies used in war and for killing game; a smaller
kind called Boodthul are thrown for amusement.
Boondees are heavy-headed clubs used in war.
The black fellow won't allow his womenkind a heaven of rest, for the
spirit women are supposed to make weapons which the wirreenuns journey
towards the sunset clouds to get--the women's heaven is in the
west--giving in exchange animal food and opossum rugs, no animals being
there.
For carrying water they used to make bags of opossum skins. To prepare
the skins they would pluck the hair off, and, after cleansing them
well, sew up the skins with sinews, leaving only the neck open. They
would fill this vessel with air and hang it out to dry.
As, a water vessel, to mix their drinks and medicines in, they used
Binguies or Coolamons, a deep, canoe-shaped vessel cut out of solid
wood, carved sometimes and painted, a string handle to it. They used
little bark vessels to drink out of, like shallow basins, cut from
excrescences on eucalyptus trees; these were called wirree. A larger
bark vessel they used for holding water, honey, or anything liquid.
While on the subject of personal decoration I forgot the Moobir, or
cuts on the bodies, some of which are tribal marks, some marks of
mourning, some merely of ornamentation. Both men and women are seen
with these marks in the Narran district; some huge wales on the skin
from the shoulders half-way down the back, some on the chest and the
forepart of the arms. They are cut with a stone knife, licked along by
the medicine man, filled in with charcoal, and the skin let grow over.
Various reasons are given for these marks: some say they are to give
strength, others as a tribal sign, others just to took pretty. Some
give the final reason for everything, 'Because Byamee say so.'
In summer the blacks are great bathers, and play all sorts of games in
the water. Their soap is clay; they rub themselves with that, the women
plastering it under their arms again and again; the little children rub
themselves all over with it, then tumble into the water to wash it off.
In winter they forgo bathing, and rub themselves with liberal
applications of grease.
The old blacks used to have very good teeth; they never ate without
afterwards rinsing out their mouths, and sometimes munched up charcoal
to purify them. But the younger generation have discarded the
mouth-rinsing habit, and not yet attained to a tooth-brush: result,
gradual deterioration in teeth, a deterioration probably helped by the
drinking of hot liquids. Blacks of the old time drank nothing hot.
Perhaps, too, their tough meats gave muscular strength to their jaws.
To blacks, kissing is a 'white foolishness,' also handshaking; in olden
times even to smell a stranger was considered a risk.