SEMON'S RESEARCHES IN AUSTRALIA. 33 



into further details we may state that everything referring to 

 the propagation of the species is carefully regulated, with the 

 object of compelling men to take wives from alien hordes. 

 The most important Australian feast is the celebration of the at- 

 tainment of puberty by the young men, who on this occasion 

 are subjected to severe ordeals and cruel tortures, such as circum- 

 cision, ghastly tattooing, or the extraction of one or two front 

 teeth. 



It has been asserted that the Australians represent a degenerate 

 race, and that their remote ancestors had attained a far higher degree 

 of civilization. Some paintings, which adorn the walls of caves on 

 Glenelg River, in northwestern Australia, have been adduced in 

 support of this hypothesis. It is evident, however, from the cast of 

 the features, the cranial formation, the long garments, hats, and 

 shoes of the figures in these sketches that they were made by 

 shipwrecked Europeans, or perhaps Phoenicians. Everything in 

 the life, language, traditions, habits, and general character of the 

 Australians indicates a primitive people who, instead of deterio- 

 rating, have made some slight advancement in culture. The fact 

 that they show no marks of near kinship with their neighboring 

 islanders, the Papuans, Malays, or Maoris, tends to complicate the 

 question of their origin. They possess many anthropological charac- 

 teristics in common with the Dravidian hill tribes of the Deccan and 

 the pre-Dravidian Veddas of Ceylon, such as the shape of the skull, 

 the outlines of the face, and the waviness (in distinction from wool- 

 liness) of the hair; and these physical resemblances acquire addi- 

 tional significance through striking similarities in the Dravidian and 

 Australian languages. If it be true as has been maintained, and 

 seems highly probable, that the Caucasian race is of Dravidian 

 origin, the Australians might claim to be very remote kinsmen of 

 the Europeans, and their likeness to degenerate types of the latter is 

 certainly quite strong. 



As already indicated, the Papuans of New Guinea belong to the 

 later or neolithic period of the stone age, and their superior cul- 

 ture is especially manifest in their artistic skill and taste. Their 

 implements are made of wood, stone, shells, bones, and similar mate- 

 rials, and they have never learned the use of any metal. The 

 hatchets, of feldspar, hornblende, and other stones, are not rudely 

 chipped, but beautifully polished, and they manufacture vessels of 

 burned clay in which to cook their food. Everything they fabricate 

 is remarkable for elegance of form and delicacy of ornamentation. 

 One can not but wonder at the perfection of workmanship wrought 

 by stone tools — knives and daggers exquisitely carved out of wood or 

 the bones of the cassowary, bracelets, frontlets, and necklaces of 



VOL. I.II. — 3 



