13(i NOTKS ON DUTEllKVLS 'KEOUNCILIATIOS I'KTUKE. 



conception of the reconciliation arose in the artist's mind 

 only, or whether the females did play the role attributed 

 to them in the oil sketch. 



Wc will now^ examine those features of the painting 

 that axe of interest with regard to the aborigines. 



It is pretty certain that the loin cloth, consisting of a 

 kangaroo skin (with the fur inside") is a concession to the 

 public taste of 1835. We know for certain that the 

 aborigines did not cover their sexual organs. 



Ornaments are woni by both sexes : these consist of 

 shell necklaces, and a human lower jawbone, suspended by 

 a string, and worn round the neck. It seems remarkable 

 that only the men wear the jawbone, while the women wear 

 only pearl necklaces. This may be accidental only, the 

 more so because in the engraving not one of the figures 

 wears a neck ornament. These are apparently subsequent 

 additions to the fisrurcs of the oil sketch and this would 

 somewhat reduce their ethnological value, because it would 

 show that the artist painted them, not as he had seen them, 

 but as he thought that they would make a pleasing effect. 



Only three men wear the customary head-dress, i.e., 

 the ringlets produced by rubbing a mixture of red ochre 

 and fat into the hair. It is noteworthy that these three 

 men show the neaj;est approach to correct features of the 

 aborigines, in particular the flat nose. 



All the other men wear short curly hair. The ques- 

 tion may well arise, did the aborigines, when brought to 

 Hobart, lose the habit of smearing the hair with ochre, 

 probably because they had none, or did they, in their free 

 state, only occasionally x-esort to this practice, while gener- 

 ally the hair was left in its natural state? It is pretty 

 certain that once the hair wa.s well rubbed with the mix- 

 ture of red ochre and fat, which hardened in time, it could 

 not be removed unless the head was shaved. Now such 

 3 head-dress must afford a good shelter to vennin, and it 

 is perhaps probable that, if worried too much by it, the 

 aborigine had his head shaved, and not until it had i^ached 

 a cert-ain length it was again treated with the ochre mix- 

 ture. The men wearing the natural hair would therefore 

 represent individuals whose hair is growing, but had not 

 reached the sufficient length for the ornamental head-dress. 

 If this view were correct, the remarkable sentence, "He 

 shaves his hair with a flint," would perhaps bo not so 

 wrong after all, because the men did shave their hair occar 



