DESCRIPTION OF TOAS, 



OR Australian Aboriginal Direction Signs. 



Bkim. an Abstract from thk |. G. Ril-thkr manuscript, by thf. i.atk 



SIR EDWARD STIRLING, M.D., D.Sc, F.R.S., etc., Hon. Curator in Ethnology, 



AND EDGAR R. WAITE, F.L.S., Dirfxtor, South Australian Museum. 



Plates xi-xx. 



Introduction. This paper is based upon the manuscript written, and the 

 collection made, b}" the late Rev. J. (i. Reuther, who for eighteen years was 

 in charge of the Lutheran Mission .Station at Kallalpaninna (to the east of 

 Lake Eyre) and which 1 visited in 191C) (U . This MS. and collecticni was 

 purchased by the Board of Governors, but a study of the writings indicates 

 that certain ]3ortions, at least, \\-cre previously copied and sent to M. von 

 Leonhardi, of the Stadtischen \dlker-Muscum at Frankfurt am Main, a fact 

 of which my Board was probably unaware. Many papers by the Rev. Carl 

 Strchlow, of Hermannsburg, also sent to von Leonhardi, were published in 

 the "Veroffentlichungen" of the Frankfurt Museum, but I am unaware if 

 any of Reuther's MS. has so far been issued, war conditions preventing the 

 exchange of correspondence aiul literature. 



The descriptions of the Toas is published, therefore, at some risk of being 

 anticipated in Germany, but even so it seems advisable to issue in English, 

 and in our own "Records," an account of the specimens permanently preserved 

 and exhibited in the .South .\ustralian Museum. 



Some of the i\IS., dealing with the actual description of the Toas, was 

 translated and arranged by Sir Edward Stirling with a view to its ultimate 

 publication. Two days before his death, which occurred on March 20, he 

 asked me to continue and complete the work and publish it under my own 

 name. 



A certain portion of the translation was done for Sir Edward by his 

 daughter, Mrs. T. B. Robertson, and Ijy Mr. F. R. Zietz ; to the last-named 1 

 also owe thanks for assistance in this direction. 



As far as I am aware the only account of these objects so far published 

 is that by Dr. R. H. Harris (2), who on the authority of H. J. Hillier gives a 



(1) Waite, Trans. Roy. See. S..\., xli, 1917, p. 414. 



(2) Harris. Mem. Queensland Mus., vi, 1918, p. IS. 



