THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



I'luilo Inj J. II. Jlei(//i,-l 



A GROUP OF TASMANIANS. 



[Unbart. 



dialects resembled the Australian, but were of 

 | ruder, of less-developed structure, and so imperfect 

 that, according to Joseph Milligan, our best 

 authority on the subject, they observed no settled 

 order or arrangement of words in the construction 

 of their sentences, but conveyed in a supple- 

 mentary fashion by tone, manner, and gesture 

 those modifications of meaning which we express 

 by mood, tense, number, etc. Abstract terms 

 were rare, and for every variety of gum-tree or 

 sviittlc-tree there was a name, but no word for 

 "tree" in general, or for qualities, such as hard, 

 soft, warm, cold, long, short, round, etc. Any- 

 thing hard was " like a stone," anything round 

 "like the moon," and so on, " usually suiting the 

 action to the word, and confirming by some sign 

 the meaning to be understood." The records of 



their arts, customs, and beliefs, before they were contaminated by European influence, are 



far from satisfactory; and even of their physical structure far less evidence than could be 



desired is at present attainable. 



Anthropologists believe that the island-continent of Australia was at some distant period 



inhabited by a woolly-haired race of Papuans or 



Melanesiaus, from whom the Tasmanians were 



derived, and that, later on, these people were driven 



out of their continent by the present race of so- 

 called Aborigines, who are believed to be Caucasian, 



like ourselves. By this explanation we escape the 



difficulty of supposing that the Tasmanians could 



have come all the way from Melanesia, or from 



New Guinea. According to Professor Tylor, the 



religion of these people was a rude "Animism"; 



they thought that a man's shadow was his ghost. 



The echo of his voice when he spoke against a 



cliff was his shadow talking. They believed in a 



future state, of which the abode was some distant 



region of the earth; and as in the case of 



Australians, they were wont to recognise in their 



white visitors the souls of dead Tasmanians returned 



from the land of spirits. 



" In religion " (according to the late Dr. Brown) 



"they believed in a spirit who could, especially 



during the night, hurt or annoy them, and beyond 



this their mythology was limited. They also believed 



in a world ' beyond the grave, where they were 



better fed and led a somewhat easier life than in 



the present one where stockmen who set spring- 

 guns for them were unknown, and where neither 



mutton impregnated with strychnine nor flour with 



arsenic was pat in their way when they were hungry. They had great confidence in the 



power of amulets. The most valued of these was a bone from either the skull or the arm of 



their deceased relatives, to be sewn up in a piece of skin; this was sovereign against sickness 



or premature death." 



V 



From Dr. A. B. Mojei^s "Album con (Jdtlx* Typ<-nC' Dresden. 



A WOMAN OF CELEBES. 



