ABORIGINES AT HOME

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 May 1934, Page 10

ABORIGINES AT HOME

THEIR LIFE AND HABITS The /uslralian aborigines arc a vanishing race. According io the iast census, only sixty thousand full-bloods are left. In some parts of our continent, indeed, the vanishing is a past process, and there are native-born Australians, who have never seen a blackfel.'ow in the flesh. Queenslanders. however, still have ample opportunity of becoming acquainted with these ( ifepossessed masters of the land, for there are three big aboriginal settlements, where the State Government ’ cares for them, besides large mission settlements on the. Gulf

Carpentaria devoted to their civilising and protection, while parts of Capo York. Peninsula, and the far-in-terior contain blacks who live more nearly in the old/ wild state!writes Constance Meekness, in the ‘‘Sydney Morning Herald.”) It was my privilege recently to be for a. time the guest of the superintendent. and his wife on one of our Slatc- . controlled settlements, that, known as Barambah or Cherbourg, which is situated near Alurgon; and the visit gave me a. higher opinion of the blacks and a pardonable sense of pride in what our Government is doing for these poor people whom our fathers robbed of homes and limiting grounds. Barambah covers fifty square miles of country, and the settlement is like a. largo village. There are (he homes of the white officials, two schools—one for white, and the other for black children —three teachers' residences, a sawmill, a. ha 1 !, a store, an office, a. hospital, big dormitories for children whose parents arc dead

or away working, or for grown-u girls not, in employment, and finally the camp—a series of cottage home for black families. nations are sii] plied to ail in the settlement, whil those who take part in its Industrie get small wages as well. Under whit' supervision, the blacks are capabli of hard and intelligent work. Om white man runs the engine in the sawmi 11 and supervises the work there and on the big farm that supplies tin whole settlement with vegetables The superintendent and his assistan manage everything else, and the form cr has naturally a great deal of office work to attend to, besides being ruler Judge, adviser, and friend to nine Inin ■dred blacks and half-castes. At any minute ho is liable to ho called away from the task, of the day. perhaps k confer with a dying parent about a child’s future, perhaps to hold a court and settle a squabble between a .jealous wife and the young charmer she suspects of casting sheep's eyes in her hnsband’s direction, perhaps to grant

Iman in whom the old nomad instinct has suddenly grown strong permission f.o satisfy ii. by a. “walk-a--I'cuf.” Every day there is something | to regulate, some worker Io keep an eye on. There are large herds of cat I lie io look al’ler. ami these provide meat ami milk for the ■ sei ’ loment. (here are roads to be med'- or repair I rd, bridges to be built, collages to be I run up, and all by black labour. There arc r. live police, km. ami native?; in charge of the dormitories, ami helping in the hospital. With so few whit? supervisors, one- would expect Io find scamped work: but the roads arc smooth, the bridges solid, the little homes snug and trim, fife dormitories, as neat as the proverbial new pin and, as orderly m; ' well-run boarding schools. A visit, of inspection loaves one with a. definite st'nse of respect

for the blacks. So does a. visit to their school. The youngsters are cheerful, jolly, eager little creatures, keenly interested in their work, suprisingly neat, and as advanced for their age as white boys and girl l .;. Mr. Crawford, the headmaster, was enthusiastic about his work at Barambah. He proudly showed piles of exercise books that lacked even one smudge or mistake in spelling. and other piles of elaborate and beautiful needlework done by the girls. Discipline gave no trouble so he declared; .-'mi his statement was easily credible when one reflected that single white matron sufficed to keep order in several dormitories full of black children, and compared that order with the pillow fights and raggings bound to upset, white boarding schools so slenderly staffed.

Singing seems to be a favourite lesson in the school, for the blacks Jiavo a. natural love of music. Theboys have a really remarkable orchestra in the form of a leaf-band. A leaf of any kind —gum, '’range, even rose — is held lightly against the lower lip by two fingers of the left hand, then 'weird noises indicate that the band is tuning tip. That done, some more or less difficult composition is played with the greatest ease and with sweet, tunefulness. As I listened to “Souvenir.” violins, flutes, cornets, and plaintive iikicleles seemed to be performing for my benefit. Though the children show decided intelligence, there are no openings for litem except, as farm labourers, stockmen, or domestic servants, so their education is not carried past the Fourth Form standard for primary schools. It is one of our stock ideas 'hat. the black mind is. incapable of education beyond a, certain point; given (he chance, however, our aborigines might show, as Booker T. Washington did for Ute negro in America, that the black brain can follow the white one even along high academic paths.

NAT IVE 131 AG IN ATI ON At all events, their nature myths and geographical legends, bear eloquent testimony to their possession of poetic fancy' or imagination. Some of these 'ales are as fine as Greek or Norse myths, and they have a homely realism that is an added charm. Kookaburras. meat-ants, black' opossums, v. ild bees’ nests —these have, a place in litem beside dread spirits and magicians. Sm.h myths also prove the I high, moral sense of the aborigines.! They have learned our white vices now, .-'nd Barambah has its problempmys in real life and its complement of unmarried mothers; but the leg-

em’.s still treasured and retained show m; a. people who admired courage, honesty, justice, kindness, and civic, duly. To this day. the black is the most generous of mon, sharing everything with his fellows. Austrattans no! familiar with the aborigines la!!; of them as “niggers." am! think of thorn as negroid in apI’ccrcjico. j; is a big injustice Io 'imir looks. A study of their faces show:; definite affinities with the (,’aucasian races. Save for the black pigment in (heir skin, they are far liker to us tlmn to coarse-feat ii red. thicklipped. woolly-haired negroes. The youngsters have attractive faces, and cv u some of the adult full-bloods have good fealures of the European type, while most, of them are wo!l--im ii-. No.-fh Queem-laml blacks, in p?r.‘.mnl.ir, Ht'd good food supplies in their wild jtaie. and developed a fine physique. As lor lim Im|i'-< a-t'■ gii] -.

some are actually lovely, and others miss beauty only by an over-flattened nose. We have heard a good deal recently of black and white marriages, to breed the black blood out. A study of the half and quarter caste children at the se.tlenient seems to prove its feasibility, for some have flaxen hair, blue eyes, freckles, and no slightest sign of a. black ancestry.

Ono of the most admirable features of this Government settlement is that, it is big enough to leave the natives something of their old life. There are lonely gullies and rugged hills where wallabies may be hunted in the old way. creeks where fish may still be speared on the long four-pronged fishing-spears of the past, “garneys’ (frilled lizards) and goannas for dormitory boys to add to their breakfast damper and treacle, and scope for the o'.d bush-lore that made the men such wonderful limiters and trackers. Corroborces arc still held round campfires, boomerangs still go whizzing round in droning circles, and mittawarras (the wireless of the b'acks'i still send their whining call through the vibrant air. Yet the old beliefs mid the old ways are dying out. Lsds no longer go through the harsh imitation ceremonies of the borah-ring, and only two faiths hold real sway in the settlement to-day—Christianity and sport. A primitive people is bound to bo emotional. Just, as heads are liable, to be split open for trifles, so a mi.'.ive who gets religion “gets it bad. Hospital assistants may be caught reading their Bibles as they dispense—and sadly mix—their drugs: and farinboys will want to plant out peanuts and study the Gospel at. tin: same. time. The Christmas look: v- ; .h pitying superiority on the “snorts. The ladder, who rim fine cricket and football teams and arc unlmp l '” if they miss a. weekly visit to the (alkies '

often "thip” Iheir Christian comraues about, the good things in Isle tne.mi::;. Still, old faiths die hard. A black who fancies lie has been boned by c.'.i enemy still dies ot tear, even m the settlement, unless one. of the remaining witch-doctors saves him 1’• extracting the wallaby-sinew, b 1 o. glass, or other object, that Im;-; been destroying his life- A while onlooker may explain that, the “doctor’ probably had the object in his mouth til’ the lime be was nominally extracting H l v sucking some spot on his patient'.-, body; but? that grateful patient knows !"> wa•; d'dim and is alive again, ami orimmeni is wasted on him. Naturally." such superstitions a'e bound Im linger on m spite ot a kno'‘ltd ; .e of the three K's and an appetite for ice An interesting people altogethm. these-blacks of ours, and an intelligent and likeable people too.