NA TURE 



549 



THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 1879 



THE A USTRALIAN AND TASMANIAN RA CES 

 TJie Aborigines of Victoria, with Notes relating to the 

 Habits of the Natives of other Parts of Australia 

 and Tasmania. Compiled from various sources for 

 the Government of Victoria by R. Brough Smyth, 

 F.L.S., F.G.S., &c. 2 vols. (London: Triibner and 

 Co., 1878.) 



IN these two bulky volumes we are for the first time 

 presented with a really comprehensive account of 

 the natives of Australia ; and by their timely publication 

 under the auspices of the Victorian Government an em- 

 phatic reply is given to the charge often brought against 

 the colonists of indifference to the past history, present 

 condition, and ultimate fate of those races. The work, 

 whose title gives a very imperfect idea of its varied con- 

 tents, may be best described as a complete encyclopaedia of 

 Australian folk-lore, as complete, at least, as a judicious 

 utihsation of all available materials could render it. As 

 such, its appearance may fairly be regarded as an 

 "epoch-making" event in the progress of ethnological 

 studies, performing much the same office for the Austra- 

 lian that the writings of Castren, Uslar, and Bleek, and 

 the Schoolcraft series have done for the Finno-Tartar, 

 Caucasian, South-African, and North-American races. 

 In the character and selection of the subject-matter it 

 bears most resemblance to this last-named compilation, 

 while differing widely firom it in the method of its treat- 

 ment, the confusion and discordant elements inseparable 

 from Schoolcraft's erratic plan being here avoided by a 

 clear arrangement of the materials and a uniform system 

 consistently adhered to throughout. 



A large portion of the work, it should be mentioned, 

 has been composed by the distinguished geologist, Mr. 

 R. Brough Smyth, at inter\-als during the sixteen years 

 he has acted as secretary to the Board for the Protection 

 of the Victorian Aborigines. In this capacity he has 

 had exceptional opportunities of obtaining the most re- 

 liable information regarding the natives of that colony, 

 who naturally occupy the largest share of attention. But 

 the others are by no means neglected, and the subject is 

 rendered sufficiently complete by several valuable papers 

 on the tribes of New South Wales, Queensland, South 

 and West Australia, supplied by the Rev. W. Ridley^ 

 Philip Channey, J. Moore Davis, and other contributors, 

 all speaking from personal knowledge of the facts. 



Besides an able introduction of some fifty pages, sur- 

 veying the whole field and imparting a certain unity to 

 the work, the first volume is devoted to strictly ethno- 

 logical subjects. Under twenty separate headings the 

 physical and mental qualities of the aborigines, their 

 social habits, daily life, food, diseases, dress, weapons, 

 implements, manufactures, and myths, are treated in 

 detail. The general impression produced by a careful 

 perusal of the vast array of facts here brought together 

 is, that the "black-fellow" is not nearly so black as he 

 has been painted, a statement which is quite as true in 

 the material as it is in the moral sense of the word. 

 Thus the prevailing colour is represented as not black at 

 all, but rather a "chocolate brown," sometimes inclining 

 Vol. XIX, — No. 494 



to black, sometimes of a lighter hue, and it may be re- 

 marked that this is supported by the independent testi- 

 mony of Richard Oberlander, a most accurate observer, 

 who expressly states that "die Haut ist nicht schwarz, 

 sondem von dunkler Kupferfarbe " (" Der Mensch 

 vormals und heute," Leipzig, 1878, p. 41). The hair 

 also, though in some cases jet black, would appear to be 

 more frequently of a " deep brown," and with boys and 

 girls, "in colour brown, not very dark" (i. p. 5). This, 

 combined with its wavy character ("crisp," "waved," 

 passim, but never "woolly" or even "frizzly," like the 

 Papuan), will be regarded by many anthropologists as 

 conclusive of the mixed origin of the aborigines. On this 

 interesting point the compiler unfortunately throws very 

 little light, though he adopts the vdew held by many, that 

 " there are in Australia two distinct races of men, one of 

 which is clearly of the white variety " (i. 328). By " the 

 white variety" he obviously means what is commonly 

 understood by the "Caucasian" type, and the counten- 

 ance here and elsewhere given to the beUef in the 

 presence of a Caucasian element in Austraha is one of 

 the weak points of the work. The curious lists of words 

 adduced, though with some reserve and hesitation, in 

 support of a community of speech carries us back to the 

 days when et\-mology did duty for science. Thus the 

 native terms kurrin, trippin, throkkun, are compared with 

 the English inquiring, dripping, throwing, leaving the 

 impression that there might possibly be some sort of con- 

 nection between a native verbal ending in, un, and the 

 quite recent English verbal ending ing — recent, at least, 

 in its modem participial and gerundial senses. Of course, 

 those who bring together such fanciful comparisons have 

 no sense at all of the growth of language, but they might 

 have common sense enough to reflect that it is a growth, 

 and consequently that in the case of idioms assxmied to 

 hare been originally one, the comparisons must be made 

 not between subsequent historical developments, but 

 between primitive organic elements, if any such exist in 

 common. Then when they have exhausted English, 

 Anglo-Saxon, Greek, Moeso-Gothic, Sanskrit, they rush off 

 to Hebrew, Phoenician, and especially Tamulic and 

 Telugu, without reflecting that, however mixed, the 

 Australian tongues can hardly be made up of such utterly 

 discordant elements as Aryan, Semitic, Dravidian, or 

 that if they are Aryan, they cannot be Dravidian, and so 

 on; hence that their etymological method, proving too 

 much, proves nothing, or, in other words, is unscientific. 

 It is much to be regretted that these simple principles are 

 not more generally understood, and that too many other- 

 wise valuable ethnological works should still continue to 

 be disfigured by linguistic discussions which, a genera- 

 tion or so hence, will be looked upon as amusing 

 anachronisms. 



The sections devoted to the native weapons, stone im- 

 plements, canoes, &c., are of great interest to the anthro- 

 pologist, who will here find more than one long-cherished 

 doctrine rudely shaken. Thus the argument for a 

 common Australoid race, embracing the Australians, 

 natives of the Deccan, and others, based on the supposed 

 identity of the boomerang with the Indian throwing-stick 

 is shown to be utterly worthless. The question of the 

 resemblance between the wonguim or true returning 

 boomerang and other similar weapons met with amongst 



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