68 G. Elliot Smith on 



Why did not Australia become the seat of an Empire rival- 

 ling that of the Incas, the Mayas, or the Aztecs ^ Why were no 

 monuments built there to provide another Zimbabwe conundrum 

 for ethnologists to puzzle over 1 



The only explanation that suggests itself is the character of 

 the aboriginal population. It could not be driven to undertake 

 the vast work which the Mashonaland negroes were enslaved to 

 perform, and without the co-operation of the local people such 

 highly organised enterprises could not be carried out by a mere 

 handful of immigrants. But it is impossible that the enterpris- 

 ing seamen would not have devised some means of obtaining the 

 gold if they had discovered it, whatever the character of the 

 aborigines. What possibly prevented them from finding the 

 gold was the fact that the presence of a local population may have 

 deterred small groups of immigrants from prospecting a great 

 territory, and the aboriginal people, with their mental limitations, 

 certainly would not have rendered the immigrants much help in 

 their search. 



In the light of what we know these roving sailors to have 

 accomplished elsewhere, we are driven to fall back upon the 

 character of the great island-continent and the nature of its 

 aboriginal population lor an explanation of the failure of the 

 wanderers to build up in Australia a great civilisation such as 

 they were able to effect in Mexico and Peru. 



But though these sailors exerted a relatively slight influence 

 in the Australian continent, in the smaller islands of Melanesia 

 (see map, B), inhabited mainly by people akin to the Australians, 

 they were able to impress their culture more deeply. And when 

 we proceed beyond Melanesia and reach Polynesia we enter a 

 domain where entirely new conditions prevailed. So far we have 

 been studying the wanderings of sailors who came as immigrants 

 bringing a leaven of new culture which they planted in a local 

 population. I have just suggested that when the local population 

 was too large and inaccessible, and possibly too stupid, the 

 influence of the contact may be quite unobtrusive to the casual 



