On the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the 

 Lower Murray and Darling, by 



GERARD KREFFT. 



[Read 2nd August, 1865.] 



IT is much to be regretted that many of our fellow-colonists who 

 have had ample opportunities for observing the aboriginal inha- 

 bitants of Australia, have never made an attempt to record the 

 manners and habits of a people now without a doubt upon the 

 verge of extinction : and as every observation be it apparently 

 ever so trifling will become of greater interest from year to 

 year, T may be held excused if I come before you to-day with 

 some bond-fide notes relating to the Aborigines of the Lower 

 Murray and Darling. Nearly eight years have passed since they 

 were made, and many of the natives, then in the prime of life, 

 have disappeared already, and but few of them will be 

 remembered by the settlers who now occupy their hunting 

 grounds. 



Unlike the American Indian, who slowly retreated before the 

 settler, the Australian clung to the soil upon which he was 

 born, but he did not become civilised ; he tried to eke out an 

 existence, feeding upon his Kangaroos and Emus, and occasion- 

 ally interfering with the squatters' stock : but finding that he 

 could not do so with impunity, he came to terms, bartered his 

 opossum rug for blankets ; his game for flour, beef, or mutton ; 

 his services as a shepherd or stock-rider for other luxuries of 

 civilised life ; and at last he became dependent for almost every- 

 thing upon the occupant of his own domain. The consequence 

 of all this is obvious. A native once used to flour, tea, sugar, 

 and tobacco, can hardly exist without them ; hence very few inde- 

 pendent tribes remain within the settled districts, and the younger 

 members of them have almost forgotten the vegetables or the 

 game upon which their fathers once feasted. 



T 



