30 A NATURALIST IN TASMANIA ch. 



gards as having been used in religious ceremonies, 

 probably in connexion with ancestor worship. 

 These stones show signs of having been broken by 

 baking in the fire. In support of his view that 

 they were used in religious ceremonies he quotes 

 a curious passage from Bonwick's Daily Life and 

 Origin of the Tasmanians, p. 193 : 



When the Quaker missionaries, Messrs. Back- 

 house and Walker, were visiting the remnant of 

 the tribes carried to Flinders Island, Bass's Strait, 

 they saw a poor old ' lubra ' busy in placing 

 together sundry flat stones marked variously 

 with black and red lines. These, she explained 

 to the strangers, were her country people absent 

 from her .... Unwilling to refer to them as 

 dead, she spoke of them as ' plenty far away '. 



Although many of the early observers have 

 affirmed the contrary, it is certain that the Tas- 

 manians knew how to obtain fire by twisting a 

 pointed stick in a hoUowed-out piece of wood, 

 some dry tinder being placed in the hollow ; and 

 the use of fire was habitual to them for clearing 

 the forests, in order to entice Kangaroo and other 

 game to feed in the clearings so made, for cooking 

 their food, and cremating their dead. Their food 

 consisted largely of shell-fish and Crayfish, the 

 native marsupial animals, such as Echidna, Kan- 

 garoos, and Opossums, the eggs and flesh of the 

 Mutton Bird or Sooty Petrel (Procellaria), and 

 various vegetables, such as the roots and young 

 shoots of ferns, sea-weeds, and fungi. 



We have a good deal of information as to the 



