iry2 



cjple to the inetliod of throwing the spear Ijecoiiies far too com- 

 plicated for the intellect of a blackfellow. To this 1 must yet 

 add the rite of circumcision, and the belief in the transmigration 

 of the soul. This useless rite, that is practised by jnany nations, 

 and is spread over a vast extent of the globe, elevated by many 

 to an important religious ceremony, and retained by highly cul- 

 tured peoples, although it lacks all ethical and aisthetic value, 

 could hardly have been devised independently by the secluded 

 Australian race. Nor could the l)elief in the transmigration of 

 the soul have come to them by intuition, and consequently it is 

 more probably the result of the imprints left behind by some 

 highly cultured niinds that influenced their ancestors. 



It is almost certain that at present tlie origin of the rites, as 

 well as the reason for their practise, is completely lost by the 

 Australian natives, and that they have now become reduced by 

 them to habitual customs, practised mainly for the purpose of 

 retaining authority over the young men, and the women. 



The conclusion T have arrived at is that prior to the connnence- 

 ment of migration into Australia, the ancestors of the present 

 race must have been imbued with a much higher culture than 

 no\^• exists, and that through stress of circumstances, and 

 diversified conditions, their mental, and . also in some instances 

 their physical, calibre has become reduced, and the import of 

 many of their customs has been completely lost in conse(iuence, 

 whilst the practice thereof is retained. If a people inferior to 

 themselves preceded them on this continent, which is by no 

 means improbable, these may have influenced their present cou- 

 diticjn inasmuch that they have absorbed them to some extent ; 

 for example, wliere small numbers of either race were brouglit 

 into contact with each other in remote parts, where neither were 

 numerically sti'ong enough to suppress the other, or where the 

 males only were killed and the women allowed to live. Such 

 admixture may to some extent have influenced the mental and 

 physical condition of some of the tribes, and consequently the 

 diversity now noticed between many of them may not be due 

 solely to the difference in the abundance or otherwise of the food 



supply. 



These conclusions are borne out by the facts that the rites of 

 (circumcision and mutilation are conjointly practised nearly 

 througluiut the interior of the continent ; that the one or the 

 other is practised in the intermediate tracts, and that neither is 

 practised by most of the coastal tribes —in fact, as far as I can 

 ascertain the Kimberley coastal tribes are the only ones of this 

 class who practice these rites. To explain tliis peculiar phenome- 

 non it must be supposed that the conservative dispositions were 

 more tenaciously retained by the natives of the interior than with 



