66 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST 



E. Daries, who has paid much attention to their customs, in 

 writing of them in the year 1845, says : — 



" When death occure they place the hody upright in a hollow tree. When 

 a 3'ear or upwards has passed away, they return to the place and burn the 

 body with the exception of the skull ; this they carry with them until they 

 chance to fall in with a cemetery in which a number of skulls are heaped 

 together, when they add this one." 



This custom of cremation may hare been the cause of so few 

 bones of the natives having been discovered other than skulls, and 

 yet no instance has come to my knowledge of these skull-burrows 

 having been found containing their grim records. 



It is the opinion of many Ethnologists that the extinct Tasmanian 

 race is of high antiquity. Bonwick, who is one of the best authorities 

 on the "lost race," observes in his Daily Life of the 

 Tasmanians : " That Tasmanians, whether as a distinct creation, 

 an affiliated people, or a transmuted race, are of high antiquity can 

 admit of little doubt. A strong argument for their remote age may 

 be gathered from their ignorance of navigation, which is equally 

 apparent in their neighbours across the Straits." 



In point of human advancement everything tends to show that they 

 were in the Palceolithic division of the Stone Age; viz., that of rough, 

 unground stone implements ; and accordingly they, like the 

 Australians, had not advanced sufficiently far as to drill holes into 

 their axe-heads for the reception of the handles. On the contrary, 

 they employed withes bent into a loop to receive the stone hatchets, 

 and which was secured in its place by string made of twisted fibre and 

 the gum of the Xanthorrea. They had not advanced far enough to 

 fashion canoes out of the hollow trees, but constructed them with 

 sheets of bark tied up at the ends, while the only means they 

 possessed of propelling these frail primitive craft were spears, and 

 paddling with their hands. 



" Seeing how low these primitive people were in the scale of 

 civilizitionj it is most probable," observes Mr. Bonwick, " that they 

 were isolated from the rest of the world of progress for many 

 thousands of years. They were in their hunting grounds when their 

 land was joined to [New Zealand on the east, and to Victoria on the 

 north, whatever lay to the southward and westward. They are, 

 therefore, an older race than the Australians." Accepting this 

 view of the question, it is, I repeat, strange that nothing has been 

 brought to light in caves and post pliocene deposits to prove the 

 correctness of the deduction. As a set-off to this it may be observed 

 that the population of the island is small in comparison to that of 

 the neighbouring colonies, and also that there are few persons who 

 liave the taste for prosecuting geological and paloeontological 

 researches. It is, therefore, impossible to say what facts may not be 

 brought to light in the future from the tomb of the distant part. 



