PRESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. LXXXIX 



I think we may say that it looks very much as if in Australia, 

 both in regard to its characteristic mammalian fauna and its 

 alboriginals, we have a remarkable example of such an unfolding 

 or unpacking of an original complex. This has led, without any 

 outside influence, to the development, on the one 'hand, of mam- 

 malian forms, along lines parallel to those pursued in regard to 

 fundamental features by higher forms in other parts of the world, 

 but controlled, at the same time, by some factor or combination 

 of factors that has determined the retention of their marsupiality. 

 On the other, it has led to the independent development of a race 

 of human beings along lines parallel to those pursued by other 

 early races of humanity elsewhere, but always again controlled 

 by some factor or combination of factors that has prevented them 

 from developing into anything higher than men of the stone age. 



For us in Australia, so far as the aboriginals are concerned, we 

 have two duties clearly marked out. The first is to study as care- 

 fully and intensively as possible, their customs and beliefs, and 

 all that is included under the term of their culture, hecause they 

 stan»d further back in time record amongst human races than any 

 other people still existing; they represent the last surviving relic 

 of really primitive stone-age people; and it can only be a matter 

 of comparatively a few years before they are extinct, or the sur- 

 ^dving remnants of the tribes have lost all knowledge of their 

 original habits and customs. The second is to protect them, as 

 far as possible," not only from u^, but from themselves, in the 

 new environment that Ave have created for them, and with which, 

 left to themselves, they are totally incompetent to cope. 



