68o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



THE AUSTKALIAN ABOKIGINES. 



By GABEIEL MAECEL. 



THE recent work by Mr. Brough Smyth relative to the aborigi- 

 nes of the colony of Victoria contains also many curious de- 

 tails respecting the manners and customs of the natives of other parts 

 of Australia. It is evident that the native race is not everywhere 

 equally pure. In the northern part of the continent traces may be 

 observed of immigrations in earlier times of Papuans from New 

 Guinea ; of Chinese, whose visits are attested by the lacquered 

 articles, cotton cloths, bamboos, etc., which have been found in the 

 hands of the natives ; and of the Malays, who have frequented the 

 northwest coasts for fishing from time immemorial. Nevertheless, 

 the figures of the natives, their arms, their workmanship, have every- 

 where a strikingly uniform character. Their numbers have fallen off 

 very fast in the face of the extension of the white settlements, partly 

 on account of the fierce wars that have prevailed between them and 

 the colonists, but more in consequence of the inroads of the vices and 

 maladies which they have contracted from the whites. The mission- 

 aries have been able to make but small headway in their efforts to 

 convert them, and have exerted no appreciable effect in staying the 

 progress of extermination. Recently the Government has established 

 a bureau for their protection, has allotted lands to them, and opened 

 schools for them, and the few of them that are left enjoy at least a 

 promise of better times. 



The disapjoearance of the Australian race has been promoted by 

 _, certain peculiarities of its own, among which are the 



belief that no person can die a natural death, and the 

 general practice of infanticide. When a member of a 

 family is about to die, the natives believe it is the result 

 of witchcraft practiced by some neighboring tribe. The 

 relatives of the deceased arm themselves at once, and 

 follow the course that is taken by the first insect or fly 

 that they see light upon the grave of the deceased. It 

 is not from any lack of affection that the mother kills 

 her child, but most frequently because it is impossible 

 to give it food, or because it cries too much, or is stupid, 

 or deformed, or weak ; and, along with this incompre- 

 hensible hardness of heart, these savages give to their 

 children numerous marks of affection. The same man 

 who will half kill a girl to make her his wife will protect her and love 

 her tenderly after she has submitted to his will. The part of the wife 

 is far from being agreeable. The slave of her husband, she has to 

 carry, besides her child, all the burdens when they travel, to do the 

 hard work, and be ready at any moment to obey the orders of her 



