14 MEMOIRS OF THE QZEEXSLAyD MISEUM. 



be induced to exclaim " that fella Iminlmg. cav"iit mak'em talk all a same white 

 man"; and this is, I think, one of the most important points in the consideration 

 of our Queensland " message sticks." 



Nothing is more natural, either, than even among primitive folk a love 

 message should be delivered by means of a love token, and when such is the 

 case it is noticeable that such a symbol is not accompanied as a rule by any 

 particular set of marks; the " beautiful nonsense" which every lover so highly 

 appreciates is left undoubtedly to the inuigiuation, ludess it might be that we 

 can discern in certain " flash" marks, sometimes so noticeable, something of 

 the sender's emotion. It must be exceedingly difficult for the white man to 

 iinderstand the proper significance of the "message stick" from the black man's 

 standpoint, and it is because an endeavour to- explain the "message stick" from 

 our own has so often been made, that we have been at a loss to understand the 

 subject properly. 



Most authors are agreed that the marked " message sticks" tell no 

 particular story nor indeed have any specific meaning, hence the opinion on 

 this subject of a man like K. J. Cooper, of Melville Island (who was also Baldwin 

 Spencer's informant), is of the greatest possible value. Cooper in this connection 

 says : — 



" There are very few used on Melville Island. Some people say that the blacks on 

 receiving them can read or understand the marks on the stick, but that is not my experience. 

 Anyone entrusted -vvitli a ' message stick' is told the message and the different meaning of 

 tlie marks. Sometimes sticks arc sent and no message is told to the bearer, that is in tlie 

 case of sweethearts, &e. T have heard them read them; one mark may mean ' him want 'em,' 

 and then another one, a growl, and another mark ' him want 'em me go bush ' ; and then anotlier 

 person may get a stick differently marked altogether and the same meaning applied, and vice 

 lersti. I Jiave received ' message sticks' personally, but always the bearer lias told me what 

 is wanted, and the stick explains itself, each notch denoting some definite article required; 

 and tlie stick is simply sent to iirovc tliat tlic message is true, and is kept to refer to later 

 when the sender is met with. ' ' 



It is, liowevei', hardly likely that such marked sticks woukl have originally 

 come into existence if tlieic had not been some definite intention of their 

 conveying some precise meaning, and viewed in this light they are luidoubtedl}^ 

 the fii'st primitive step towai'ds a written language. The idea of an aid to 

 memory is nothing new. Dniiker in his "Races of Man" (6) gives a number of 

 very interesting instances of the use of symbolic objects and mnemonic marks, 

 such as for instance the little horn tablets bearing notches which have been 

 found in the .sepulchral caverns of the Quaternary period, at Aurigmv 

 (Dordogne). 



Of great im[)ortanee to our suljjeel is the recoi'd of Ilarmaiid (11) 

 discovered in a Laotian village in the shape of a notched tablet, each jioleh of 

 which had a definite significance. 



