JANUARY 2nd, 1907. 



ATJSTEALIAN ABORIGINES. 



LECTURE BY DR. KLATSCH. 



A laig© audience assembled on Janu- 

 ary 2, 1907, in the Royal Society's room 

 at' the Tasmanian Museum to hear a lec- 

 ture by Dr. Herman Klatsch, Professor of 

 Human Anatomy at the University of 

 Heidelberg, on the habits, customs, and 

 ceremonies of the Australian natives. 

 Mr. A. G. Webster presided, and amongst 

 those present was Dr. DeLany, Bishop of 

 Laranda. 



At the outset Dr. Klatsch explained the 

 object of his visit to Australia, namely, 

 to study the skulls of the aborigines, 

 which Huxley had declared bore a 

 striking resemblance to fossil skulls 

 found in Europe. Huxley's assertion 

 had, the Professor said, been absolutely 

 confirme-d by his investigations." In ad- 

 dition to studying the skulls of the 

 natives, he had sought to study their 

 bodies generally, and for that purpose 

 had measiired some three hundred of 

 them in various parts of Australia. He 

 came to Australia in. 1904, and first 

 settled in Brisbane, where he made the 

 acquaintance of Dr. Roth, who placed 

 his great collection of skulls at his dis- 

 posal. In making his investigations he 

 had also received great assistance from 

 the Governments of New South Wales 

 and Queensland. The Government of 

 I he latter State had furnished him with 

 a vessel in which he had circumnavi- 

 gated Australia, ,amd also made a trip to 

 Java. 



The Professor then proceeded to speak 

 at some length on the resxilts of his ex- 

 amination of the aboriginal skulls, and 

 pointed out in the diagrams projected on 

 a screen the remarkable prominence 

 about the e3'es, which was a point of re- 

 semblance to the fossil skiills of the 

 earliest period found in Europe. Be 

 then directed the attention of the audi- 

 ence to reproductions of photographs of 

 natives taken in various parts of the 

 continent. The first groiip shown was 

 one of Archer River natives, whom he 

 described as fine athletically-built men, 

 and very intelligent. He found them, 

 he said, good material for investigation, 

 but encountered great difficulties at the 

 outset. He succeeded, however, in win- 

 ning their confidence by performing an 

 operation on an old woman, and thence- 

 forward all was plain sailing. The mis- 

 sionaries living amongst the people ap- 

 peared to the professor to have anything 

 but a pleasant time of it, and he won- 

 dered very much how they continued to 

 live there. After alluding to the fact 

 that polished stone implements were 

 rarely found in that particular part of 



Australia, the Professor described the 

 danger which he incurred in digging open 

 a gi-ave in order to obtain a skeleton. The 

 blacks threatened to spear him; and to 

 quote the professor's own words : "I left 

 the place very quickly one day, and since j 

 rlien I have been more careful whenever j 

 I have opened a grave." The people in j 

 that part of Queensland were dying out i 

 rapidly. They lived very frequently * 

 with Chinese, who introduced opium 

 among them, with fatal efi^ects. The 

 'it reduction of the drug was prohibited 

 by law, but the law went for nothing. 

 The missionaries did their best for the 

 unfortunate people, but had not re- 

 ceived the assistance they deserved. The 

 natives inhabiting the region in the 

 vicinity of the Bellender Ker Mountains 

 were of a superior type. They were 

 intelligent enough, and assisted the 

 whites in gold-mining. It was quite 

 erroneous, the Professor declared, to 

 think them incapable of working. The 

 facial characteristics of those people 

 strongly resembled those of the peoples 

 of the Northern Territory, and of N.W. 

 Australia; a fact which, to his mind, in- 

 dicated that they had all sprung from 

 the same primitive stock. In this dis- 

 trict Professor Klatsch was successful in 

 obtaining possession of a mummified 

 corpse, and the means to which lie had 

 resource constituted a quaint piece of 

 comedy. He went to interview the 

 relatives of the departed with his pockets 

 full of t»bacco, etc., and made an offer 

 for the mummy. The weed appealed 

 to the young members of the family, 

 but the mother strongly objected to 

 the whole proceeding. However, material 

 prevailed over sentimental considera- 

 tions, and the professor obtained posses- 

 sion of the mummy- But even then he 

 was not out of the wood, for next day 

 the young people, instigated by the im- 

 portunate mother, demanded the return 

 of the body. It was then the professor's 

 turn; he demanded the refund of the 

 tobacco, and before anything further 

 eventuated, left the district. 



Leaving Queensland, the Professor con- 

 tinued his investigations in West Aus- 

 tralia, visiting Broome and Wyndham. 

 Th-s latter place was rather notorious, 

 and unfavourably so, on account of the 

 blacks in that district having been ill- 

 treated by the whites. In the words of 

 the Professor, Wyndham was in the stage 

 in which Tasmania was between 1820 and 

 1830. A black war was going on there; 

 A'here there was an enormous number of 

 blacks, and in consequence of the trouble 

 with the whites, it was impossible to 

 approach thsm. They regarded every 

 white man, if a little better dressed than 

 usual, as a policeman, and to them a 



