110 ON AN ABORIGINAL IMPLEMENT, 



instrument used. At about the centre of the unexcised part, or 

 head as it may be termed, a hole has been bored, one and a-half 

 inches in diametei'. This head is six inches long, and the excised 

 portion or handle about nine inches. Introduced into the hole, 

 is the columellar portion of the body whorl of the large Melon 

 shell, probably Melo diadema, Lamk., the outer edge of the frag- 

 ment, or what would be the anterior end of the whorl, being 

 ground to a cutting edge, by friction from the outside, producing 

 a slight bevel. As the shell portion is too small for the hole, the 

 former has been wedged in by four pieces of circular stick, soft 

 wood, which project on the outside, and the shell blade is thus 

 held in position. It is six inches in length. 



I can only imagine this to have been meant for a hoe, and, 

 although of the roughest description, it was, no doubt, tolerably 

 well adapted to the use for which it was meant, the roughest 

 description of husbandry. 



It has been asserted on more than one occasion that the Aus- 

 tralian Aborigines were collectively quite devoid of any knowledge 

 of husbandry, even in its most elementary form. This generalisa- 

 tion is, however, a mistake, similar to many other mistakes that 

 have been made by writers with the view of bolstering up the old 

 preconceived and erroneous idea that the Australian Aborigine 

 represents one of the most, if not the most degraded variety of 

 the human race. 



Sir Geoi'ge Grey has described* the method of yam digging 

 employed by the natives generally with the yam-stick. The 

 stick is driven firmly into the ground with the right hand and 

 shaken, so as to loosen the earth, " which is scooped up and 

 thrown out with the fingers of the left hand, and in this manner 

 they dig with great rapidity." 



Sir Thomas Mitchell also, in his account of tropical Australia, 

 describes "ground tilled by the natives." He states:! "We 



*N.-West and Western Australia, 1841, ii. p. 293. 

 t Tropical Australia, 1848, p. 274. 



