28o THE FOOD OF THE TASMANIAN ABORIGINES. 



races (i), but also gave me some literary references^ 

 which were of the greatest value to me. I wish to thank 

 Dr. A. H. Clark for the loan of Thompson's Practical 

 Dietetics, which was of the greatest assistance to me. In 

 it I found all those data necessary to calculate the nutri- 

 tious value of the food consumed by the Aborigines. 



Ling Roth in his classical book on the Aborigines of 

 Tasmania devotes an interesting chapter to the subject of 

 food. His account is based on the evidence of numerous 

 eye witnesses, and it must therefore be considered as a 

 reliable source of information. It is certainly more ex- 

 plicit and accurate than Dr. Campbell's account (I.e. p. 

 40), which is not free of errors (2). 



One source of information with regard to the diet of 

 the Aborigines has not been considered yet, viz., the 

 vocabulary. It is a priori very probable that the vocabu- 

 lary will contain the names of those substances of either 

 animalic or vegetabilic origin that formed the staple 

 articles of their food. Though it is pretty certain that 

 those animals and plants with which they came in fre- 

 quent contact, either in a friendly or hostile way, were 

 altso distinguished by special names, we may safely 

 assume that chiefly those that were valuable as foodstuffs 

 were specially named. 



It will be the best plan first to record the evidence of 

 eye witnesses, and then to see how far this agrees with 

 the evidence of the vocabulary. 



II.— EVIDENCE OF DIFFERENT PREVIOUS 

 AUTHORS. 



(Summarised from Ling Roth, Aborigines of Tasmania, 

 pag. 85-97.) 



All accounts agree that the chief articles of food were 

 meat and shell fish. " The craw-fish and oysters if imme- 

 diately on the coast are their principal food. Opossums 



(i) The diet of the Precibiculturist, British Medical Journal 

 for 1905, Vol. II., pag. 40, 208, 304, 350, 406, 665, 813, 979, 1,217, 

 1,658. 



(2) For instance, the use of underground ovens, and they 

 certainly made no bark canoes or rafts. 



