NATURE'S GENTLEMAN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 85, 20 January 1928, Page 6

NATURE'S GENTLEMAN

AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES. MANY FINE QUALITIES, It is a far cry from a blackfelkw's gunyah in the JTortliern Territory to the glitter of one of Sydney's dance halls, but Div Lloyd 1 Warner, America© ; anthropologist^. haying, tested life ik [both places, gravely declares that the , civilisation of the aboriginies is preferI able to that of Sydney, Lecturing in Sydney last week. Dr. Warner said he found the. blacks in the Northern Territory ladiea and gentlemen. He had never me* finer people, nor people more innately gracious; Compared with them the people oT London, New York and Sydney were a group of barbarians, with no other: thought than that of making: money, j

First of all, Dr. Warner agreed with a suggestion that if "King Billy" of Arnheim Land, were given a chance as Mayor of Chieago he might set an example of graciousness and good-man-ners to the militant Mayor,. "Bill" Thompson. "Most of' the men up there," he said, "could do no worse than Mayor Thompson has done from the point of view of international diplomacy. A few of them have done much better. They are cleverer and more intelligent than Tiiompson. ever was."

Haying lived for seven months with the jambaa-pirigu-koparpingu tribe in north-eastern Arnheim Land, 350 .miles east of Darwin, eating native food and sleeping on the ground under the shelter of gunyahs in native fashion, Dr. Warner claims to know something of the habits and character of the aborigines. He said: "Then* community life is better organised. The sexes know their respective places and duties, and stick to tnem. Every member of a tribe" participates to the full in the civilisation upon reaching maturity, unlike the whites, who are split up into innumerable water-tight compartments. "Social laws are stricter and bett<ar 'observed. There are no social diseases where there has been no contact with the whites. Hours of labour are short, not more than two or three a day. Parental and family responsibilities are more strictly enforced. A man and his-mother-in-law exchange gifts of food daily, but they are forbidden to speakto each others which, says Dr. Warner, avoids endless possibilities of trouble." As to other qualities, Dr. Warner says: "They have intellect, and a sense* 'of humour that enables them to tell jokes against themselves. They are kind, hospitable and unselfish in a simple, unaffected way. Their natural : graces lead them, unmasked, to walk i oh either side of the white man to keep crocodiles away from him when they are crossing rivers; to wash the mud? • off his body, and clean his finger nails, ito break bushes from his path. And -still the tale of aboriginal virtue is not half told." \

But—Dr. Warner doesn't advocate .that the whites return to the simple, primitive life. "I wouldn't say that," was his reply to a direct question