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are met with, indicating a fundamental difference between these 

 groups and those in Australia, to which, unfortunately, the same 

 name has been applied by some writers. 



When first Australia was visited by Europeans they had no 

 opportunity of investigating the natives; in fact^ from the time 

 when Dampier first touched the western coast line, and for long 

 years afterwards, the general conclusion in regard to them was 

 expressed in the well-known phrase, '' Manners none ; customs 

 beastly." 



The most important introduction to anything like a serious 

 study of the aborigines was first made in Western Australia hy 

 Scott Lind, Medical Ofiicer at King George's Sound from 

 1828-1829 ; at a later period by Grey, in 1841 ; and, somewhat later 

 again, by Eyre, in South Australia, in 1845. Though Grey was 

 indeed the first to detect the existence of intermarrying classes, his 

 information was, however, too vague to suggest more than that 

 the Australian tribes had some organization akin to that idescrilbed 

 amongst the American Indians. We get further hints of this 

 again in Moore (1841), Schurmann (1844), and others, but 

 nothing of any definite nature. The first who seriously attempted 

 to deal with the social organization and marriage customs was the 

 Rev. Wm. Ridley, who, hetween the years 1853-1875, published 

 much valuable pioneer work. 



The real foundation of Australian anthropology, from the cul- 

 tural side, was, however, laid when the late Dr. Howitt and Rev. 

 Lorimer Fison began to collaborate, with the result that, in 1880, 

 they published Kamilroi and Kiirnai, in which, for the first time, 

 there was given a clear outline of the social organization of a 

 typical Australian tribe. During more recent years, Dr. Howitt, 

 in The Native Tribes of South-east Australia,, summarized the 

 whole of his own work, carried on also with the aid of numerous 

 correspondents, from 1873-1900. In 1878, Brough Smyth pub- 

 lished his compilation entitled The Aborigines of Victoria; and, 

 in 1886, E. M. Curr issued another called The Australian Race. 

 In most cases it is difficult to estimate the amount of reliance to 

 be placed upon the statements of the contributors, who, save for 

 a very few, such as Howitt and Ridley, were superficial and 

 untrained observers. Other investigators, such as Etheridge, were 

 studying the technologic work of the aboriginals, and in more 

 recent years Messrs. Kenyon and Mahony have devoted themselves 

 to a most comprehensive study of their stone implements. The 

 exhibition of some 15,000 of these, shown by them to a distin- 

 guished gathering of European anthropologists, in the Melbourne 

 Museum, in 1914, aroused the keenest interest. In Queensland, 

 Roth was doing Valuable work, more especially from the point 



