Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia Volume II Part 44

This was one of the best proofs how valuable the services of the aborigines who accompanied the party were to us on some occasions. They could strip from a tree in a very short time a sheet of bark large enough to form a canoe; and they could propel the light bark thus made through the water with astonishing ease and swiftness. By this means alone most of our effects were transported across broad rivers without an accident even to any of my papers or dried plants.

TURANDUREY.

I was now anxious to convince them how much I appreciated that a.s.sistance, but felt in some degree at a loss, especially in the case of The Widow. It was therefore not the least satisfactory part of the intelligence subsequently received from Mr. Stapylton that she was married on her arrival to Joey, the King of the Murrumbidgee.

MY MODE OF COMMUNICATING WITH MR. STAPYLTON.

Mr. Stapylton had also received my several communications Numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4, which he dug from the earth at various camps; thus we had for once eluded the keen eye of the aborigines in this kind of correspondence, although on my first journey we had not been so successful. My original plan on this expedition was to bury the letter under the ashes of my fire; cutting at the same time a cross in the turf where my tent had stood, as the mark by which Mr. Stapylton was to know that something was so deposited. But I subsequently improved on this plan and buried my letter in the centre of the cross by merely making a hole with a stick in the soft earth where the turf had been cut and dropping the letter into it.

SURVEY OF THE MURRUMBIDGEE.

In my instructions to Mr. Stapylton, sent by Burnett, I directed him to survey the course of the Murrumbidgee upwards from Guy's station until he connected our interior survey with the map of the colony. This he accomplished by measuring to the junction of the Doomot, a river he had himself previously surveyed. The direct distance between that junction and the point at which we first arrived on the Murrumbidgee was ascertained by Mr. Stapylton's measurement to be 34 3/4 miles, but according to my map of the interior country 36 1/2 miles; making an error of only 1 3/4 miles + or westward in a chain-measurement continued from the station at Buree, where the journey commenced, to the Darling, thence to the southern coast, and back to this point on the Murrumbidgee. The measurement was checked by lat.i.tudes determined nightly from observations of several stars, the difference between several amounting to a few seconds only. I availed myself of trigonometrical measurements also with a good theodolite wherever this was possible, in which case such a survey engaged my whole attention, and my route was often directed according to the position of good points.

METEOROLOGICAL JOURNAL.

The meteorological journal was kept more carefully during this journey than on the two preceding; and with the kind a.s.sistance of my friends Captain King and Mr. Dunlop it affords, in some parts at least, materials for comparing the atmospheric changes in the regions explored with those occurring simultaneously on the eastern coast.

ARRIVAL OF THE EXPLORING PARTY AT SYDNEY.

It was long before the party arrived in Sydney for, when it reached the Murrumbidgee and the apprehension of famine no longer existed, rest was so necessary for the cattle that it was indulged in for their sake chiefly, to an extent much beyond the wishes of the men. The oxen looked tolerably well therefore when the party did reach Sydney, although from so long a journey; and my men enjoyed at length the triumph among their fellows, to which they had long looked forward, on conducting the boat and boat-carriage safely once more into the yard of my office.

PIPER AND THE MEN REWARDED.

But Piper seemed to relish his share of triumph most, and certainly he well deserved the kindness he met with on all sides. I clothed him in my own red coat and I gave him also a c.o.c.ked hat and feather which had once belonged to Governor Darling. His portrait thus arrayed soon appeared in the print shops; an ingenious artist (Mr. Fernyhough) having drawn his likeness very accurately. Piper was just the sort of man to enjoy superlatively all his newly acquired consequence. He carried his head high for (as he now found) everybody knew him and not a few gave him money. With these donations he purchased silk handkerchiefs and wore them in his breast, gowns for his gins, for he at last had TWO, and to his great credit he abstained from any indulgence in intoxication, looking down, apparently with contempt, on those wretched specimens of his race who lead a gipsy life about Sydney.

The men, after having been examined in my presence by the Council composed of the governor, his secretary, and the bishop, respecting the events of 27th May, were rewarded according to the standing and condition of each. The government granted every indulgence I asked in their behalf.

Burnett, Muirhead, Woods, and Palmer obtained absolute pardons. Woods receiving besides a gratuity of 10 pounds, and several, specially noticed in my report, 5 pounds each. Those who had tickets of leave were rewarded with conditional pardons, and tickets of leave were awarded to the rest with one or two exceptions. Among those excluded was Drysdale, a most trustworthy man and in whose behalf I was therefore much interested. He had not been long enough in the colony to be ent.i.tled by the regulations to any indulgence; and all I could do was to obtain for him a very laborious place in the general hospital by holding which he avoided the hulk.

Piper was impatient to return to his own country near Bathurst, and I fulfilled all the conditions of my contract with him by allowing him an old firelock, blankets, etc., decorating him also with a bra.s.s plate on which he was styled not as usual "King," for he said there were "too many kings already," but "Conqueror of the Interior"--surely a sufficient pa.s.sport for him among those most likely to read it, the good people of Bathurst. But when he came to bid me farewell he was accompanied much against his will by the murderer of Mr. Cunningham, Bureemal, who had been placed under his protection by Mr. Ferguson to be conducted back to his tribe. This fellow had grown so stout that I could perceive no resemblance in him to the youth he appeared when captured by Lieutenant Zouch, and he had acquired an impudent air very unlike that of other natives. According to his own confession he had put Mr. Cunningham to death in cold blood, and Mr. Ferguson had in return clothed and fed him for one year, and taught him the Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments.

THE TWO TOMMIES.

The two Tommies still remained to be provided for, and they were both desirous of accompanying me to England. I had seriously intended to take one with me but, so docile and so much attached to my service were both of these youths, that I felt much difficulty in choosing between them.

Meanwhile they remained at Sydney while official cares and troubles so thickened about me that I at length abandoned my intention, however reluctantly and, when they were about to return at last to their own country, I gave to each what clothes I could spare and they both shed tears when they left my house. They were to travel through the colony under the protection of Charles Hammond, one of my steadiest men who, having obtained his freedom in reward for his services with me, was proceeding towards Bathurst in charge of the teams of a Parcel Delivery Company.

BALLANDELLA.

The little Ballandella, child of The Widow, was a welcome stranger to my children among whom she remained and seemed to adopt the habits of domestic life con amore, evincing a degree of aptness which promised very favourably. The great expense of the pa.s.sage home of a large family obliged me at last to leave her at Sydney under the care of my friend Dr.

Nicholson who kindly undertook the superintendence of her education during my absence in England.

CHARACTER OF THE NATIVES OF THE INTERIOR.

My experience enables me to speak in the most favourable terms of the aborigines whose degraded position in the midst of the white population affords no just criterion of their merits. The quickness of apprehension of those in the interior was very remarkable, for nothing in all the complicated adaptations we carried with us either surprised or puzzled them. They are never awkward, on the contrary in manners and general intelligence they appear superior to any cla.s.s of white rustics that I have seen.

LANGUAGE.

Their powers of mimicry seem extraordinary, and their shrewdness shines even through the medium of imperfect language and renders them in general very agreeable companions.

On comparing a vocabulary of the language spoken by the natives on the Darling with other vocabularies obtained by various persons on different parts of the coast I found a striking similarity in eight words, and it appears singular that all these words should apply to different parts of the human body. I could discover no term in equally general use for any other object as common as the parts of the body, such for instance as the sun, moon, water, earth, etc. By the accompanying list of words used at different places to express the same meaning,* it is obvious that those to which I have alluded are common to the natives both in the south-eastern and south-western portions of Australia; while no such resemblance can be traced between these words and any in the language spoken by natives on the northern coast. Now from this greater uniformity of language prevailing throughout the length of this large island, and the entire difference at much less distance lat.i.tudinally, it may perhaps be inferred that the causes of change in the dialect of the aborigines have been more active on the northern portion of Australia than throughout the whole extent from east to west. The uniformity of dialect prevailing along the whole southern sh.o.r.e seems a fact worthy of notice as connected with any question respecting the origin of the language, and whether other people or dialects have been subsequently introduced from the northern or terrestrial portion of the globe. These words although few may be useful to philologists as specimens of the general language and, as the names of parts of the body can be obtained by travellers from men the most savage by only pointing to each part, comparisons may be thus extended to the natives of other sh.o.r.es.

(*Footnote. See Appendix 2.1)

I am not aware that any affinity has been discovered, at least in single words, between the Australian language and that of the Polynesian people;* but with very slight means of comparison I may perhaps be excused for noticing the resemblance of Murroa, the name of the only volcanic crater as yet found in Australia to Mouna-roa, the volcano of the Sandwich Islands; and that tao, the name of the small yam or root eaten by Australians, is similar to taro, the name of thirty-three varieties of edible root and having the same meaning in the Friendly and Society Isles and also in the Sandwich Islands. (See Cook's Voyages and Polynesian Researches by William Ellis.)

(*Footnote. Mr. Threlkeld has detected in it a similarity of idiom to the languages of the South Sea islanders and the peculiarity of a dual number common to all. See his Australian Grammar, Sydney 1834.)

HABITS OF THOSE OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND THE SAME.

The natives of Van Diemen's Land, the only inhabited region south of Australia, are said to have been as dark as the negro race and to have had woolly hair like them. Little is known of the language and character of the unfortunate Tasmanian aborigines, and this is the more to be regretted considering how useful a better knowledge of either might have been in tracing the progressive extension of the Australasian people. The prevailing opinion at present is that the natives of Van Diemen's Land were also much more ferocious than the natives of Australia. But, brief as the existence of these islanders has been on the page of history, these characteristics are very much at variance with the descriptions we have of the savages seen by the earliest European visitors, and especially by Captain Cook who thus describes those he saw at Adventure Bay in 1777: "Their colour is a dull black, and not quite so deep as that of the African negroes. It should seem also that they sometimes heighten their black colour by smoking their bodies, as a mark was left behind on any clean substance, such as white paper, when they handled it." Captain Cook then proceeds to describe the hair as being woolly, but all the other particulars of that description are identical with the peculiarities of Australian natives; and Captain King stated, according to the editor of the Northern Voyage of Cook, that "Captain Cook was very unwilling to allow that the hair of the natives seen in Adventure Bay WAS woolly." The hair of the natives we saw in the interior and especially of the females had a very frizzled appearance and never grew long; and I should rather consider the hair of the natives of Tasmania as differing in degree only from the frizzled hair of those of Australia.

HABITS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ABORIGINES.

Instead of the ferocious character latterly attributed to the natives of Van Diemen's Land we find on the contrary that Captain Cook describes them as having "little of that fierce or wild appearance common to people in their situation;" and a historian* draws a comparison, also in their favour, between them and the natives of Botany Bay, of whom THREE stood forward to oppose Captain Cook at his first landing. The ferocity subsequently displayed by natives of Van Diemen's Land cannot fairly be attributed to them therefore as characteristic of their race, at least until extirpation stared them in the face and excited them to acts of desperate vengeance against all white intruders.

(*Footnote. The History of New Holland by the Right Honourable William Eden, 1787 page 99.)

The habits and customs of the aboriginal inhabitants are remarkably similar throughout the wide extent of Australia, and appear to have been equally characteristic of those of Van Diemen's Land: geological evidence also leads us to suppose that this island has not always been separated from the mainland by Ba.s.s Strait. The resemblance of the natives of Van Diemen's Land to those of Northern Australia seemed indeed so perfect that the first discoverers considered them "as well as the kangaroo, only stragglers from the more northern parts of the country;" and as they had no canoes fit to cross the sea, that New Holland, as it was then termed, "was nowhere divided into islands, as some had supposed."

TEMPORARY HUTS. MODE OF CLIMBING TREES.

Their mode of life, as exhibited in the temporary huts made of boughs, bark, or gra.s.s,* and of climbing trees to procure the opossum by cutting notches in the bark, alternately with each hand as they ascend, prevails not only from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e in Australia but is so exactly similar in Van Diemen's Land and at the same time so uncommon elsewhere that Tasman, the first discoverer of that island, concluded "that the natives either were of an extraordinary size, from the steps having been five feet asunder or THAT THEY HAD SOME METHOD which he could not conceive of climbing trees by the help of such steps." It is strong presumptive evidence therefore of the connection of the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land with the race in Australia that a method of climbing trees, now so well known as peculiar to the natives of Australia, should have been equally characteristic of those of Tasmania. The notches made in climbing trees are cut by means of a small stone hatchet and, as already observed, with each hand alternately. By long practice a native can support himself with his toes on very small notches, not only in climbing but while he cuts other notches, necessary for his further ascent, with one hand, the other arm embracing the tree. The elasticity and lightness of the simple handle of the mogo or stone hatchet employed (see Figure 5 above) are well adapted to the weight of the head and a.s.sist the blow necessary to cut the thick bark with an edge of stone. As the natives live chiefly on the opossum, which they find in the hollow trunk or upper branches of tall trees and, as they never ascend by old notches but always cut new ones, such marks are very common in the woods; and on my journeys in the interior I knew, by their being in a recent state, when I was approaching a tribe; or when they were not quite recent how long it was since the natives had been in such parts of the woods; whether they had any iron hatchets or used still those of stone only; etc.

(*Footnote. Many usages of these rude people much resemble those of the wandering Arabs. Dr. Poc.o.c.ke mentions some open huts made of boughs raised about three feet above the ground which he found near St. John D'Acre. He observes: "These materials are of so perishing a nature, and trees and reeds and bushes are so very scarce in some places that one would wonder they should not all accommodate themselves with tents but we find they do not in fact." Volume 2 page 158. "And that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem saying, Go forth unto the mount and fetch olive branches and pine branches and myrtle branches and palm branches and branches of thick trees to make booths as it is written." Nehemiah 8:15.)

REMARKABLE CUSTOMS.

The men wear girdles usually made of the wool of the opossum, and a sort of tail of the same material is appended to this girdle, both before and behind, and seems to be the only part of their costume suggested by any ideas of decency. The girdle answers besides the important purpose of supporting the lower viscera, and seems to have been found necessary for the human frame by almost all savages.

CHARMED STONES. FEMALES EXCLUDED FROM SUPERSt.i.tIOUS RITES.

In these girdles the men, and especially their coradjes or priests, frequently carry crystals of quartz or other shining stones, which they hold in high estimation and very unwillingly show to anyone, taking care when they do that no woman shall see them.*

(*Footnote. Genesis 28:18. "From this conduct of Jacob and this Hebrew appellative, the learned Bochart, with great ingenuity and reason, insists that the name and veneration of the sacred stones called Baetyli, so celebrated in all Pagan antiquity, were derived. These baetyli were stones of a round form, they were supposed to be animated, by means of magical incantations, with a portion of the Deity; they were consulted on occasions of great and pressing emergency, as a kind of divine oracles, and were suspended either round the neck or some other part of the body."

Burder's Oriental Customs volume 1 page 40.)

BANDAGE OR FILLET AROUND THE TEMPLES.

The natives wear a neatly wrought bandage or fillet round the head and whiten it with pipe-clay as a soldier cleans his belts.* They also wear one of a red colour under it. The custom is so general, without obvious utility, at least when the hair is short, that we may suppose it is also connected with some superst.i.tion.

(*Footnote. See ill.u.s.tration Cambo Volume 1.)

STRIKING OUT THE TOOTH.

But still more remarkable is the practice of striking out one of the front teeth at the age of p.u.b.erty, a custom observed both on the coast and as far as I penetrated in the interior. On the western coast also Dampier observed that the two fore-teeth were wanting in all the men and women he saw. According to Piper certain rites belong to this strange custom. The young men retire from the tribe to solitary places, there to mourn and abstain from animal food for many days previous to their being subjected to this mutilation. The tooth is not drawn but knocked out by an old man, or coradje, with a wooden chisel, struck forcibly and so as to break it. It would be very difficult to account for a custom so general and also so absurd, otherwise than by supposing it a typical sacrifice, probably derived from early sacrificial rites. The cutting off of the last joint of the little finger of females seems a custom of the same kind; also boring the cartilage between the nostrils in both s.e.xes and wearing therein, when danger is apprehended, a small bone or piece of reed.*

(*Footnote. The aborigines of Australia seem to resemble more, although at so great a distance, those of the Sandwich Islands than the natives of any other of the numerous isles so much nearer to them. According to Cook this strange custom of striking out the teeth prevails also there. "The knocking out their fore teeth," says that navigator, "may be, with propriety, cla.s.sed among their religious customs. Most of the common people and many of the chiefs had lost one or more of them; and this we understood was considered as a propitiatory sacrifice to the Eatooa to avert his anger; and not like the cutting off a part of the finger at the Friendly Islands to express the violence of their grief at the death of a friend." Cook's Voyage.)

PAINTING WITH RED.