PROBLEMS OP ABORIGINAL ART IN AUSTRALIA. 207 



them in 1879 (I know not on what gronnds) at between 

 70,000 and 80,000 : and writes, '• it is not improbable that the 

 degraded AustraHan will long outlast the much higher Maori 

 or Tahitian." It is certainly noticeable that comparativ^e 

 survival of races does not bear direct proportion to nobleness 

 of race, and is compatible with a process of extinction in the 

 survivors. The Red man in America Aviped out the far 

 superior Toltecan, and then dwindled, himself: and the idea 

 that the present Aborigines of Australia have superseded 

 some more artistic people seems, at any rate, not untenable 

 (though I do not adopt it) ; is confirmed, as some think, by 

 the remains of by-gone art we are to consider presently ; and 

 not discouraged by the fact that, from time to time, fresh 

 types of Aborigines are met with, such as the fair-skinned 

 type, encountered by Grey in the N.W., and the stout and 

 jovial examples found near the McDonnell Ranges by the 

 recent Horn Expedition to Central Australia. 



But the question remains a problem to be solved, and is 

 one of the most interesting suggested by the Art remains Ave 

 are to consider. 



Some of the products of aboriginal art, indeed, do not in 

 themselves suggest any profound problems. The black of 

 to-day, in common with other savages, is not only strongly 

 mimetic, but has his OAvn sense of beauty in form or colour, 

 and craves to give it expression in the decoration of his 

 person, his Aveapons, and his utensils. He paints circles 

 round his eyes ; scars, with sharp shells, patterns on his back 

 and shoulders : marks his face and body for festive occasions 

 in red and white geometric lines ; adorns his head with grass 

 or cockatoo feathers, his forehead with bandeaux, his nose 

 with bones thrust through the septum, his neck Avith strings 

 of beads or teeth, and his legs with anklets of green leaves. 

 His long, narroAV crescent-shaped shield, his Avaddy, his 

 throwing-stick, and even his boomerang exhibit the bar, the 

 zig-zag, the herring-bone, the lozenge, the chevron, the St. 

 Andrew's Cross (never the Latin or Greek cross), the circlet, 

 and the oval. Strange to say, he never employs floAvers or 

 shells as ornaments, while of precious stones or metals he 

 knoAvs nothing. His love for remoAang the central front 

 tooth may be dictated by a desire for symmetrical effect, or 

 else for some conspicuous badge of initiation into certain 

 religious rites. 



Of utensils the black uses few, but his nets are beauti- 

 fully made, and his grass baskets are not only grace- 



