V.] THE OCEANIC NEGROES: AUSTRALIANS. 149 



hunting-grounds, and devising all sorts of artificial methods and 

 precautions for preventing these preserves from becoming over- 

 peopled. As in New Caledonia, the food question was at the 

 base of most social institutions. 



That some system of gesture-language is current amongst the 

 natives has long been known, and Mr A. H. Howitt 

 figures in Brough Smyth 1 a few of the signs of which speech^ 

 he had acquired a knowledge amongst the tribes of 

 Cooper's Creek. On this subject Mr Smyth himself writes : " It 

 is believed that they have several signs, known only to themselves 

 or to those amongst the whites who have had intercourse with 

 them for lengthened periods, which convey information readily 

 and accurately 2 ." This statement is now fully confirmed by 

 Dr Walter E. Roth, who, during his long residence amongst the 

 Queensland natives, has discovered and become proficient in a 

 tolerably complete gesture-system ranging over a wide area. It 

 seems fully as effective as the West African drum-language, 

 which has also now been mastered by Herr R. Betz in the 

 Cameriins district. Dr Roth has determined the value of no less 

 than 213 manual signs, which are in use amongst a large number 

 of tribes in the North-west-central Queensland district, and serve 

 all the purposes of a lingua franca, and, thanks to the keen vision 

 of the natives, have the further advantage of being intelligible at 

 considerable distances. These signs, which he describes and 

 figures 3 , are, like those taught in our deaf and dumb schools, 

 capable of expressing a wide range of thought, different plants, 

 animals, natural objects, persons, events, conditions, feelings, and 

 so forth. This gesture-speech thus differs from articulate speech 

 " only in this, that the one appeals to the sense of vision, the 

 other to that of hearing 4 ,'' and should be a complete reply to 

 those philosophers who argue that thought and spoken language 

 are one. 



1 R. Brough Smyth's Aborigines of Victoria, 1878, II. p. 308. 

 * n. p. 4 . 



3 Ethnological Studies among the North- West- Central Queensland Ab- 

 origines, Brisbane, 1898, Chap. IV. with appended illustrations. 



4 Eth. p. 195. 



