Jan. 6, 1881] 



NA TURE 



clearly see how entirely the structure of the Papuan differs 

 from that of the Sawaiori tongues, and how constant is 

 the law that languages of different systems may borrow 

 any number of words from each other, while each invari- 

 ably retains its own grammatical genius. Hence, when 

 we hear of mixed Papiian, Malayan, and Sawaiori tongues 

 in these regions the expression is always to be understood 

 as referring to the vocabularies only, never to the gram- 

 mar or structure of those languages. In philology there 

 is no rarer phenomenon than mixed grammatical systems, 

 though perhaps it might be premature to deny the abso- 

 lute possibility of such mixture. 



III. The Austral Races: Australians ; TasmanianslJ) 

 The area occupied by this division of the dark races is 

 limited to the Australian continent and neighbouring 

 island of Tasmania. Here we enter an entirely new 

 ethnical world, for, although the extinct Tasmanians 

 betray certain doubtful affinities to the Melanesian^, the 

 Australians stand quite apart. They are usually repre- 

 sented as black, straight-haired, dolichocephalou^, and 

 prognathous. But this general description can pretend to no 

 scientific accuracy, and in any case it is extremely doubt- 

 ful whether they can be regarded as all belonging to one 

 original stock. Topinard, who has devoted great atten- 

 tion to the subject, recognises at least two distinct 

 aboriginal types, the fusion of which results in the average 

 Australian as above described, and whose essential 

 peculiarity may be said to consist in the combination of 

 more or less negroid features with straight hair. The 

 more primitive race, found mainly on the low-lying coast 

 tracts about King George's Sound, in the north-west and 

 extreme east, is described as of short stature, very black 

 and prognathous, with woolly or at least frizzly hair ; the 

 second and finer race, occupying the interior, and 

 especially the north-eastern highlands, are much taller, 

 of lighter colour, with straight or wavy hair, and slight 

 prognathism. 



But, notwithstanding these discrepancies, Brough Smith 

 well observes that "throughout Australia the natives exhibit 

 a general conformity to one pattern as regards features, 

 colour, and mental character. A man from Southern 

 Gippsland [V^ictoria] would be re:ognised as an Australian 

 by the inhabitants of Port Essington, and a native of 

 King George's Sound would be surely known if taken to 

 York Peninsula." This common racial instinct or fellow- 

 feeling is perhaps our best justification for treating as an 

 independent ethnical group a people for whom affinities 

 have been sought far and wide, by Huxley with Logan 

 in India, by others in Polynesia, Egypt, Europe, or 

 America. One of the arguments adduced in support 

 of an Egyptian or Indian relationship is based on the 

 assumed resemblance of the throwing-sticks of those 

 peoples with the Australian womguine or boomerang ; 

 but Brough Smith (" The Aborigines of Victoria," i. 

 P- 323), who has gone thoroughly into this question, con- 

 cludes that "it is safe to deny the affinity of the Dravidian 

 or Egyptian boomerang with that of the Australian 

 native, because the first, under no circumstances whatever, 

 could be made to behave as the womguine does. The 

 flat leaf-like weapon of the Australian difl'ers essentially 

 from the Egyptian crooked stick." Much reliance is also 

 placed on a certain resemblance between the Dravidian 

 and Australian systems of kinship. But when we find 

 that L. H. Morgan discovered a somewhat similar system 

 prevailing throughout the North American tribes, and 

 that the Rev. I.orimer Fison was able to extend its domain 

 to the South Sea Islanders, we begin to attach less im- 

 portance to a • haracter of this sort. Oiiod lu'inis prahat 

 nihil probat was a sound maxim amongst the schoolmen. 

 The Australian languages, which, with great differences, 

 present a remarkable uniformity of structure and phonetics 

 throughout the continent, have also been compared with 

 the Semitic, Aryan, and other systems, but with no 



results, except where the unscientific method has been 

 adopted. Thus miirry, great, is compared with the Keltic 

 mor, or the English more ; cobbcra, head, ^vith the Spanish 

 cobra, quite a modern formation ; gibber, rock, with the 

 first syllable of Gibraltar, of which the true Arabic form 

 is Jebelj hieleman, shield, with the Anglo-Saxon helian 

 or heiigan, to co\er, or with the English helmet, which 

 the ingenious etymologists are careful to tell us is "a little 

 shield for the head"; cabohn, good, with the French bon ; 

 tiara, land, with the Latin terra ; kiraji, wizard, with the 

 Greek -j^dpovpyo^ ; riiwi, country, with the Latin rus ; 

 takkin, eating, with the English take in (why not titck 

 in?); marti, limestone, with mortar, beyond which it 

 would be difficult to carry etymological eccentricity. 

 Many of these languages are highly agglutinating, some 

 even verging on true inflection ; but scarcely any have 

 distinct names for the numerals beyond i and 1, after 

 which 3 = 2-f[; 4 = 2 + 2, and so on. 



This common feature alone should be sufficient to 

 reject any Semitic, Aryan, or Dravidian affinities, for if 

 the Australians came of any of those stocks, it is not to 

 be believed that all the tribes would have agreed to forget 

 their inherited arithmetical system, and stop short pre- 

 cisely at the inconveniently low numeral 2. At the same 

 time it is conceivable that at an extremely remote age, while 

 Australia still formed part of the Asiatic mainland, tribes 

 resembling the Korumbas, Maravans, Todas, and other 

 low-caste peoples of the Deccan, may have spread south- 

 wards and here amalgamated with others of a Papuan 

 type from Melanesia. The result of such an intermingling 

 might be a race not unlike the present average Australian 

 — dark, prognathous, more or less dolichocephalous and 

 with wavy or shaggy hair intermediate between the frizzly 

 and straight. But these migrations cannot have taken 

 place since the subsidence of the land, because none of 

 the races in question are navigators, although some of 

 the New Guinea tribes have recently learnt the art from 

 the Malays. On the other hand the remoteness of the 

 period to which such movements must be referred is no 

 objection, for Australia has been peopled for many ages, 

 as is evident from the vast kitchen-middens found on the 

 coast, and some of which have already been used as 

 manure by the white settlers. 



The extremely low estimate of the Australian intellect 

 formed by Mr. Wake and other ethnologists seems at 

 least somewhat premature, and no one can turn over the 

 pages of Brough Smith's great work on the Aborigines of 

 'V^ictoria without coming to the conclusion that the race 

 has been much vilified and unduly depreciated by careless 

 or superficial observers. Many instances are given of 

 their skill even in drawing, a capacity for which was 

 wholly denied them. They often show great quickness 

 in adapting themselves to the ways of the white man, and 

 the children constantly show themselves " quite as capable 

 of receiving and profiting by instruction as the children of 

 untaught parents among the white race" {o[i. cit. ii. p. 256). 

 It was recently stated that the native school at Coranderrk, 

 on the Yarra, had gained relatively more passes than any 

 other school in Victoria. 



At the same time inost of the tribes are addicted to 

 extremely revolting practices, those by which the " coming 

 of age " is celebrated being especially barbarous and 

 disgusting. Some also, under unfavourable conditions, 

 have either sunk to, or never risen from, the most de- 

 based condition compatible with existence. Mr. Taplin 

 was acquainted with a Narrinyeri family, "residing on 

 Lake Alexandrina, the members of which were as nearly 

 brutes as they could be. . . . They subsisted on roots and 

 natii c fruits, and such fish and game as came into their 

 hands by means of the simplest contrivances, the thrown 

 waddy, or the simple noose, and they were regarded by 

 their own pet pie as \ery low. They would not even 

 make a shelter, but cowered under bushes and in holes ; 

 and yet it could not but be evident how far they were 



