36 RED OCHRE AND ITS USE BY THE ABORIGINES 



Now, it will at once be seen t'hat, according to the 

 position of the word " wfhite," two quite different inter- 

 pretations of the above words are possible. 



If we assume that " vale " was the attribute of 

 " terana," the translation would be — 



(The) hair matted with red ochre (is cut with a) white 

 flint, 



and this would prove that the important, and probably 

 also painful, operation of removing (cutting or shaving) 

 the hair thickly clotted with red ochre was carried out 

 by means of a special kind of flint — a white flint to whit. 



Another interpretation is, however, possible if the 

 word " yale " is not an attribute of " terana." We may 

 then read it as follows : — 



(The) hair matted with red ochre (with a) flint (was 

 made) white. 



Now, it is hardly surprising that in the Tasmanian 

 language the same word is used to denote " white " and 

 " clean." What is white is clean, and what is clean is 

 white. The primitive Tasmanian language knew not the 

 fine distinctions of our highly-developed one, and we 

 may therefore read the above as follows : — 



(The) hair matted with red ochre (with a) flint (was 

 made) clean (i). 



Though we succeeded in giving a literal translation 

 of the words which Milligan presumed to mean "ta 

 shave with a flint," the true meaning of these words is 

 by no means certain, and open to two widely different 

 interpretations, and it has to be examined which is the 

 more probable one. 



At the end of his vocabulary Milligan gives a number 

 of short sentences, which are of the utmost value. 

 Among these we find — 



He cuts his hair with flint — Tuggana pugheranymee 

 trautta. 



(i) Of course we may also substitute tiie word "clean" for 

 "white" in the first translation; but here the alteration does 

 not produce such a change in the meaning. I suppose it mat- 

 tered little whether the flint used was clean or dirt}', though it 

 would matter considerably whether it was " black " or " white." 



