with Western Australia is invested with peculiar interest to me, for some of the happiest years of my official life were spent there; and I like to think that feelings of friendship and regard have been established between the people and myself which, at all events on my side, neither time nor distance can obliterate.

AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINALS

By G. WILSON HALL

(Late M.P., Victoria)

MANY persons come to the conclusion, in speaking of the natives (aboriginals) of Australia, that there is very little distinction between one part of the continent and another. Yet there is a difference of race, character, stature, language, and in some respects modes of life. If I were asked to give the two extremes of Australasia, I should select the Maori, New Zealand, as the most intelligent, highest character, and finest stature, and the Victorian blacks as about the dirtiest, laziest, most ignorant, superstitious, and poorest-built tribe. The Victorian race, however, is fast dwindling away, partly through some dire disease, which occasionally breaks out amongst them, carrying off great numbers, and partly through infanticide, once so universally practised. Then they had a belief that no one dies a natural death, so that if a death occurs, the relations of the deceased think sorcery has been practised by another tribe, and a murdering expedition is started to revenge the dead, and bloody, destructive battles are fought. It was a common thing to see a lubra carrying one pickaninny, but most uncommon to see a mother carrying two children. If she had twins she selected the healthiest, and did away with the other. The tribes have their own boundaries, and woe to any other native who was found trespassing on the territory of another. Sometimes it would be summary punishment. If a man,

In one,

he would have his front teeth knocked out; if a woman, a joint of her little finger cut off. Some tribes have laws more stringent than others. the man required exclusive fidelity from the woman, under the severest penalties, sometimes death, but he recognised no similar obligation towards the woman. The giving in marriage at an early age was admitted, but if a greater man grew up, and demanded the girl as a bride, it was a matter of the strongest, and the weaker man had to be content to see his intended marched off by his conqueror. There are travellers who have a good opinion of the Australian aboriginal, and believe most of them may be trusted. One writer says that if Messrs. Burke and Wills, the explorers, on their return to Cooper's Creek, after their dash across the continent, had understood the natives whom they found there, and exhibited a friendly bearing towards them, they could, in all probability, have learned from them that the party who had been left in charge of the depôt camp was only a day's journey ahead. A communication would have been opened up, and in the meantime the natives would have sustained them with food; instead of which the explorers were driven by hunger to eat some fish bones which had been left by the blacks, and finally perished from starvation. After the death. of Burke and Wills, King fraternised with a powerful tribe, and was supported by them until succour arrived.

The blacks are superstitious, and have some strange theories regarding their origin. Some of the Yarra (Melbourne) tribes say that, many years ago, Punjil made two male creatures from clay, and with his big knife he cut three large sheets of bark, upon which he worked the clay into a proper consistency. When the clay was soft, he carried a portion to one of the other pieces of bark, and commenced to form

the clay into a man, beginning at the feet; then he made the legs, then he formed the trunk and the arms and the head. He made a man on each of the two pieces of bark. Being well pleased with his work, he looked at the men a long time, and he danced round about them. He next took stringy bark from a tree, made hair of it, and placed it on their heads-on one straight hair and on the other curled hair. Punjil expressed his pleasure by again dancing round his human creation. Then he named the straight-haired one Berrookbom, the curly-headed one he called Kookinkerook. After again smoothing their bodies with his hands, from the feet upwards to their heads, he lay upon each of them, and blew his breath into their mouths, into their noses, and into their navels; and after breathing very hard, they stirred. He danced about them a third time. He then made them speak, and caused them to get up, and they rose up, and appeared as full-grown young men. This is the general belief as to their creation.

The blacks' chief superstition is that they do not die, but when the body becomes motionless it will rise again, and perhaps appear in the form of a white. It is very common to hear the black say that instead of dying, "he will go down black fellow and come up white fellow." This superstition is borne out by the account given by William Buckley, the Wild White Man, who lived with the blacks in Victoria for about thirty-three years before he had an opportunity of being restored to his own race. He was so long with the tribe that he spoke.their language fluently, and well-nigh forgot his own. Buckley was an escaped convict, and in his early wanderings he was almost starved, not being able to procure suitable food. In a famished condition, he one day dragged himself to a grave, denoted by a spear being thrust in the ground. This was the spear of the dead black, and Buckley drew it

from the ground. He clutched it in his hands, and sank exhausted upon the grave. When he woke, he found black women dancing and singing around him, and, as he afterwards learnt, hailing him as the returned black, but now a white man, and fully grown, for Buckley was over six feet in height. They came to him and unfastened his shirt, to be sure he was white all over. They then went for some of the men of the tribe, who made great rejoicings. Buckley signified that he was hungry. Food was brought to him, and he received great attention, and offered a wife from amongst the tribe, which he thought it better to accept.

The corroboree or war dance must be seen to be rightly understood; but I will endeavour to give a description, as I have seen over a dozen of these weird demonstrations. The night is selected, and a fire made, around which is seated the lubras or black women. Their legs are crossed, and stretched from knee to knee are dried skins of animals, upon which the women beat with sticks, keeping time to the sing-song, and to which accompaniment the men dance. The blacks-perhaps 200 in number—are grotesquely got up for the occasion, having wreaths of gum leaves around their arms, loins, and legs. Their faces and bodies are painted with different-coloured clay in peculiar fashion. Each man is armed with clubs, spears, or boomerangs, and shields of bark. They sing, snort, and make all sorts of noises, stamping their feet upon the ground all together, causing it to shake, so excellent is the time kept. They beat their spears or clubs upon each other's shields, singing or yelling, and wriggling their legs, which are painted with white clay. When this wriggling takes place, these white stripes down their legs have the appearance of writhing snakes. Then there is a struggle for victory,. With glaring eyes, dilated nostrils, and cheeks puffed out, a rush is made. One