RACE ORIGINS

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 May 1933, Page 5

RACE ORIGINS

THE TASMANIAN BLACKS The Tasmanian aborigines are now extinct, and the tragedy of their passing might well be seriously taken to heart by civilised races in their dealings with savages (writes George McIver in the Sydney Morning Herald). It is not intended here to enter upon the cruelties meted out to the unhappy Tasmanians by profligate whalers, escaped convicts, early settlers, and callous and inefficient administrations —the idea being to endeavour to place the land from whence their ancestors came. If the original home of the Tasmanians could be located, the discovery should go far towards solving the problem of the origin of the human race.

The Tasmanians have passed away, leaving few traces of their ways of life and fewer still of their ancestry. There are, however, a few clues from which reasonable inferences may be drawn. For these clues we are indebted to eatly observers and scientists. What makes the problem more complex, however, is that early writers who came into personal contact with them differ as much in description as scientists concerning their origin. The varied accounts concerning appearances and ways of life could in a measure be explained by dissimilarities in different tribes, as in the case of the Australians. The tribes of the west coast would appear to have been of finer physique, with a deeper colour tint than those on the east, coast, where possibly there existed a Papuan or Melanesian strain, brought probably by wanderers from other shores, but not in sufficient numbers to influence the culture of the Tasmanians. Captain Kelly, writing in' 1815, states that the natives he saw along the west coast were of tall stature and> fine physique. Briefly, it may be stated that the hair was curly or woolly, like that of the African negro, and the colour of the skin a dull black; also, that in many ways they resembled the Australian aborigines.

HOME AND STOCK

As to the original home of the Tasmanians, after all has been said, the fksld for speculation is limited —the consensus of opinion being that they were of African, Melanesian, or Papuan stock; and, I think, there are grounds upon which the last two might be almost eliminated. My own opinion is that the ancestors of the Tasmanians originally came from Africa, and were identical with the Australian aborigines, when Tasmania was a peninsula of the main land. The persistency with which they adhered to a state of nudity in a climate of sudden changes and severe winters—particularly when skins were available and when they knew the use of them as a protection against inclement weather, for occasionally a kangaroo skin was worn —would suggest that their remote ancestors lived in a warm climate. Most writers conclude that the Tasmanians were of Melanesian origin, from whom the Papuans also may have descended; but the Melanesians were, and still are, expert canoe builders and navigators whereas the Tasmanians

would appeal’ to have come from an inland people, having little contact with the sea. The frail rafts and makeshift canoes of the Tasmanians, never safe beyond sight of land, and little used except for crossing streams and estuaries, were not the work of a maritime people. The African negro is not, and never was, a navigator, which, I think, gives support to the theory that the original home of the Tasmanian was in Africa. Early observers have affirmed that the Tasmanians bore a striking resem blance to certain tribes in New Caledonia, and also to the natives of the Andaman Islands, and the Bainings of New Britain. However that may be, it is safe to conclude that, excepting perhaps for occasional stray visitors to their shores, the Tasmanians were isolated for a very long period. They were a paleolithic people, which never got beyond the culture of the eaily stone age, which must have been the way of life in the land of their, ancestors when they left it. It is said that Paleolithic man lived in England over one million years ago. The Tasmanians were a brave and warlike people. With their primitive weapons —the club and the spear they defended their beautiful island against the invaders for many years.