IMPLEMENTS OF SUFEESTITION AND MAGIC.— HAMLYN-EABEIS. 
3 
ON CERTAIN IMPLEMENTS OF SUPERSTITION 
AND MAGIC. 
ILLUSTRATED BY SPECIMENS IN THE QUEENSLAND 
MUSEUM COLLECTIONS. 
By R. Hamlyn-Harris, D.Sc., Etc. (Director). 
(Plate V and Two Text-figures,) 
Tue appalling rapidity with which the Queensland aborigines are dying 
out justifies the publication of these few particulars. Eveiw year the chance 
of saving their relics and the story they have to tell becomes more and more 
remote^ and indeed it is questionable whether even now it is not too late. 
There are few localities in Queensland where the influences of civilisation are 
not apparent^ and the native of to-daj^ when speaking of himself and his 
forbears prefers to draw upon Ills imagination rather than speak the unso- 
phisticated truth; sometimes he is unable to do so, but be that as it may, the 
difficulty of sifting the truth from that wliicli is false is becoming increasingly 
more difficult. These facts Avere brought home to me afresh during a recent 
tour in North Queensland, oliserving this kind of thing at first hand. Little 
reliance can noAV, unfoiTunately, be placed upon anything a blackfellow tells 
you except in very rare instances- His imaginative faculties run riot on every 
possible occasion, and the more credulous you become the more* does he delight 
to impose upon you. I have often been struck, in conversation with a native, 
hoAv imperfect his memory seems to be and how easily connected ideas fade into 
insignificance, cluiractcristics leading to the rapid elimination of knowledge of 
customs and beliefs. It is astonishing, also, Iioav easily the native brings himself 
to believe that Avhich he fancies to be the case. I do not think this ignorance 
is assumed, but real. 
I have seen implements and weapons made by aboriginals about Avhich 
there can be no possible doubt that they are of modern manufacture, with ideas 
incorpoi’ated, which they themselves have acquired within the last decade or 
sc — implements whi(*h bear in every detail of their manufacture the mark of a 
bunglej‘ — and yet these people Avill declare most solemnly that they and their 
forefathers have used such from time immemorial. In order to safeguard the 
interests of scientific research, it is necessary that some mention should be 
