CHAPTER I 

 PASSING AWAY 



SOME investigators tell us that the aborigines of Australia 

 came out of Egypt carrying with them their ancient signs 

 and totemic ceremonies ; others, that they are represen- 

 tatives of the Neolithic Age ; others assert that Australia is 

 the cradle of the human race, the primitive inhabitants the 

 stock whence all sprung. 



Without pausing to hazard an opinion upon any of 

 these theories, it may be said that stone axes, shell knives, 

 and fish-hooks of pearl and tortoiseshell now in use are 

 among the credentials of a people whose attributes and 

 conditions are in line with those who, in other parts of the 

 world, had their day and fulfilled their destiny ages upon ages 

 ago, leaving as history etchings on ivory of the mammoth 

 and the bone of the reindeer. Implements similar to those 

 which are relics of a remote past elsewhere are here of 

 everyday use and application. The Stone Age still exists. 



To speculate upon those phases of aboriginal life and 

 character which go to establish the antiquity of the race 

 and its profound unprogressiveness, is no part of the 

 present purpose, which is merely to relate commonplace 

 incidents and the humours of to-day. Much of that which 

 follows is necessarily matter of common knowledge among 

 those who have studied the blacks of the coast. 



There is nothing obscure, and but little that concerns 

 even the immediate past, in the philosophy of those natives 

 of North Queensland with whom I am in touch. With 

 the black, to-day is " to be, contents his natural desire." 

 The past is not worth thinking about, if not entirely for- 

 gotten ; the future unembarrassed by problems. Crafts 

 and artifices, common enough a few years ago, are fast 

 passing away. New acquirements are generally saddening 

 proofs of the unfitness of the aboriginal for the battle of 



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