LONELY AUSTRALIA : THE UNIQUE CONTINENT 



511 



nothing of property rights ; food is to be 

 obtained wherever found, either in the 

 open or in possession of his fellows or of 

 the immigrants. When his hunger is 

 satisfied the next strongest man may have 

 the remains. 



The kangaroo, wallaby, and opossum 

 form his chief food supplies ; but no ani- 

 mal or nourishing plant is neglected. The 

 diet of the north Queensland aborigines 

 includes 240 plants and 93 species of mol- 

 lusks. Ants, caterpillars, moths, beetles, 

 and grubs of all sorts are eaten raw or 

 cooked. Honey, birds' eggs, and young 

 birds are obtained from trees by use of a 

 climbing rope or by cutting notches with 

 his stone hatchet. The native is fond of 

 snakes and lizards, which are cooked on 

 hot stones covered with leaves and earth. 



Human flesh is not a regular article of 

 diet, but when conditions are hard men 

 who have fallen in battle or died of dis- 

 ease are added to the food supply, and 

 infants are killed and sometimes eaten by 

 their parents. Captives are commonly 

 slaughtered and eaten, sometimes for 

 ceremonial purposes, sometimes to satisfy 

 hunger. The flesh of the native or Chi- 

 nese or Malay, whose diet is vegetable, is 

 said to be preferred to that of Europeans, 

 which is tougher and more salt. 



The blackfellow is not a "degraded 

 savage," but rather a primitive man 

 placed in an unfavorable environment. 

 When food and water are abundant the 

 aboriginal is kind to the infirm, and even 

 shows traits of generosity and gratitude. 

 When the struggle for existence is severe 

 he becomes an animal searching for its 

 prey. Mentally he is a weak child, with 

 uncontrolled feelings, without initiative 

 or sense of responsibility. In many re- 

 spects he is intelligent and profits by edu- 

 cation, but abstract ideas are apparently 

 beyond his reach. His ignorance, sus- 

 picion, and fear, rather than viciousness 

 and evil intentions, make him dangerous 

 to strangers. 



The story of the relations between ab- 

 origines and whites of Australia repeats 

 a chapter in American history. Organized 

 brutal treatment in Victoria practically 

 ended with the Myall Creek massacre, in 

 1839, during which thirty or forty men, 

 women, and children were murdered by 



the whites. The Queensland natives suf- 

 fered unbelievable cruelties at the hands 

 of the white settlers as late as 1860-1870, 

 and not until 1897 did West Australia 

 undertake their protection. In Tasmania 

 a great hunting bee, in which 3,000 Euro- 

 peans of all classes took part, was organ- 

 ized in 1830 to exterminate the native 

 race. From the slaughter about 200 were 

 rescued and placed within a reservation; 

 by 1847 onr y 44 natives remained. In 

 1876 Truganini died and the Tasmanian 

 race became extinct. 



The natives on the mainland are now 

 under the protection of the government, 

 but "the birth rate has dropped ama- 

 zingly" and it is doubtful if any large 

 number can survive the process of civili- 

 zation. 



OUR PRIMITIVE ANCESTORS 



The origin and migration of the Aus- 

 tralian native stock is a fascinating story, 

 whose outlines and chapter headings only 

 have been written. The Tasmanians were 

 perhaps a separate group related to the 

 Papuans. Unlike the native of the main- 

 land, their hair was coarse, short, woolly; 

 they had no boomerang, no wommera, 

 knew nothing of polished stone imple- 

 ments, and their boats were rafts made of 

 reeds. 



It is probable that this race reached 

 Tasmania before the Glacial Period, when 

 its island home formed part of the con- 

 tinent. The great antiquity of the race 

 on the mainland is demonstrated directly 

 by the discovery of stone hatchets buried 

 in peat beneath extensive deposits of 

 marine clays 15 feet below sea-level, and 

 no less conclusively by the great develop- 

 ment of languages and dialects and the 

 absence among the tribes of traditions of 

 migration. 



A feature of peculiar interest is the 

 almost universally accepted conclusion 

 that the aboriginal stock of Australia be- 

 longs to the Indo-Aryan or Caucasian 

 race. Their nearest relatives are the Yed- 

 dahs of Ceylon and the Dravidian races 

 of the Deccan plateau. Although per- 

 haps the most primitive of the world's 

 inhabitants, tucked away on an extremity 

 of the world's lands and isolated for a 

 whole geological period, they are our own 



