Ahonginal iJlalects, S^^c, of Tasmania. 28l 



as hard, soft, warm^ cold, long, short, round, &c. ; for "hard," 

 they would say " like a stone" ; for " tall," they Avould say 

 " long legs" &c. ; and for " roinid," they said " like a ball," 

 " like the moon," and so on, usually suiting the action to 

 the word, and confirming, by some sign, the meaning to be 

 understood. 



The elision and absolute rejection and disuse of words 

 from time to time has been noticed as a source of change in 

 the Aboriginal dialects. It happened thus : — the names of 

 men and women were taken from natui'al objects and occur- 

 rences around, as, for instance, a kangaroo, a gum tree, 

 snow, hail, thunder, the wind, the sea, the Waratah — or Blan- 

 difordia or Boronia, when in blossom, &c. ; but it was a 

 settled custom in every tribe, upon the death of any indivi- 

 dual, most scruj)ulously to abstain ever after from mention- 

 ing the name of the deceased — a rule, the infraction of which 

 would, they considered, be followed by some dire calami- 

 ties : they therefore used great circumlocution in referring 

 to a dead person, so as to avoid pronunciation of the name, — > 

 if, for instance, William and l^iary, man and wife, were both 

 deceased, and Lucy, the deceased sister, of William, had 

 been married to Isaac, also dead, Avhose son Jemmy still 

 survived, and they wished to speak of Mary, they would 

 say " the wife of the brother of Jemmy's father's wife," and 

 so on. Such a practice must, it is clear, have contributed 

 materially to reduce the number of their substantive appel- 

 lations, and to create a necessity for new phonetic symbols 

 to represent old ideas, which new vocables would in all pro- 

 bability differ on each occasion, and in every separate tribe ; 

 the only chance of fusion of words between tribes arising 

 out of the capture of females for wives fi^om hostile and alien 

 people, — a custom generally prevalent, and doubtless as 

 beneficial to the race in its effects as it was savage in its 

 mode of execution. 



