BLACKS IN QUEENSLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 1584, 1 April 1882, Page 27

BLACKS IN QUEENSLAND.

Of ail the races' to whom the contact of civilisation has been fatal, there is none [more swiftly or surely dying out than the Queensland ftackfe'liow. " Dispersed "by the native police, poisoned by fiery Colonial rum, arid— if all stories bo true— more than occasionally by other potent means, shot down in new country by. every white man who sees them, iratil^ the survivors are glad of peace at any price, it is no matter for wonder that the strongest tribe is soon reduced to a tithe of its former numbers. And yet before the whites came among them their life was not an unhappy one, especially 'in the coast districts, where game is more " plentiful than inland, and whore they seldom know a day's hunger. Each tribe had its own recognised head, who ruled by virtue of his superior fighting qualities, but whose control over the rest was but slight. Each tribe had also its own district, out of which they seldom ventured except in time of war or when attempting to carry off a damsel from a neighbouring camp. Each small collection of families had their own totem or crest, and scrupulously abstained from killing or eating the animal whose name they bore. Their moral character would then have compared not unfavourably with that of more civilised nations. Their marriage laws wore very strict, and no intermarriage was permitted between members of the same family. They , were r r polygamous, but adultery was almost unknown, and surely punished by death. 1 Honest to eaoh other, pilfering was not one of their' vioes, and eaoh tribe was almost a sma.l

commune. Livinginalandofplenty,averyslight exertion was enough to ensure them and their families an abundance of food. Kangaroo and wallaby, opposum and bandicoot, turkeys and wild fowl, are nil plentiful and easily got at, and when yams and the large potato-like roots of the water-lily are added to the list it will be seen that their diet was by no means to be despised. Did they wish for a change they had only to take to their canoes to be sure of an abundant supply of fish. Their nets, made by the gins by hand out of a species of hibiscus, were of immense size and very strong, and were generally common property to three or four families. Their canoes, made of bark, and sewn together with throad made of hibiscus bark, are light, easily managed, and wonderfully buoyant, though an inexporioncod white man on stepping into one will probably tako a hoador into the water on the opposite side. Their, weapons are stono tomahawlcs, spoars of various patterns, some of them barbed with great ingenuity, bomerangs — semi-circular pieces of .wood pared so that their rotatory motion is that of a screw— which they can throw with great force and accurate aim for 80 or 90 yards ; and nullas, short 'clubs with a knobbed head, which they use both for throwing and hand-to-hand fighting! A heavy two-handed wooden sword and a shield complete a list of their offensive and defensive weapons. «The use of the bow and arrow is fortunately unknown to them, except in the extreme north-east of the Colony, where they have a considerable dash of Malay blood, and are frequently visited by blacks from the douth of New Guinea, which is only about 90 miles distant. The only poison of which they have found out the use is the bark of a species of myrtle, which, being pounded up and then thrown into the water, sickens the fish and brings them to the surface, where they become an easy prey.

Their knowledge of medicino is very slight, but then they are, or rather were, rarely sick. The bite of a scorpion or centipede they cure by sucking and chewing the spot that was bitten. The bite of a death adder or any deadly snake— of which there are but two or three sorts— they do not attempt to cure, but quietly lay down^ and amid the howls of their relatiqns await the death that speedily follows the bite. A severe flesh wound they plaster up with mud and keep moist for a few days, and cure in this manner some frightful-looking wounds. A broken bone they set to the best of their ability, and the result is usually a crooked or shortened limb. Measles they cure (?) 'by getting into a water-hole, ' and sitting there with their heads out untilthey 1 recover, as they very rarely, do from this to them terrible scourge. \ As for clothing, they content themselves with the costume of our first; parents in their dayß of innocence, though occasionally on grand occasions the young gins wear a plaited loin cloth. During the short Queensland winter they use 1 'possum rugs, which they make very neatly. Their houses ' consist of three or four sheets of bark' put up in a semicircle on the windy side of a small fire, round which they lie. Their' only time of, hardship is 1 during the wet season, when sometimes it' rains .incessantly for a.fortnight.'arid they have' sbm&' difficulty' in getting i about,after tha game, and "cannbfc fish irj the flooded' creeks'. 1 Their life,' before the whites came, was as happy' an animal existence as could.be imagined. 'Plenty to eat and drink arid little' else 1 to do, a genial climate, and • few ! enemies, what more could j any savage desire ? 'Of a future state of existence they 'had riot'^he faintest idea. They! had laws ; but they knew that if they broke, them p bloV on the' Head from a'mula' or a ipear through thfe body would' be the, result, sojthey ■'wisely-abstained.' 1 Superstitious, lilce'all Sgno'rant races,; they; had a' sort of' jdea' of some evil power, 'Xrhti 'sent' shakes and " crocodiles! and .shrinV 'troubles,' but they ney'er ' went to "thej length of trying, $q propitiate' 'him ' by prayer .or sacrifice: "One" 'of their', modes of execution is curious.- 1 When the death of a,meinb,erof the tribe has been determined on by the elders,, •the unsuspecting, ' victim is made insensible by a, blow on'th'e 'head, and 'his kidney fat is taken out' through a small slit, made between the ribs. He wakes' with ] probably -a headache and certainly a 'sore !side, but recovers sufficiently' to go about for two or' three days, when he dies vomiting, incessantly. The 'blacks who are not hj ,the secret are told,' and, believe, that a snake made the cut and got into the body, and So'cause'd death ', and as the wretched man is dying the old blacks, who alone' are allowed to get rid of their' enemies in this fashion, pretend to sefe the snake coming out 'of his mouth. ' Formerly! they used to cremate their dead with considerable ceremony, but now they btiry like whites. That they we're at 'one' time cannibals there is' no reason to doubt ; and in the older days, when white men were not unfrequentlyj sur- . prised and killed, tlieir' cooked and half-eaten remains were 'repeatedly found in the blacks' camp by the avenging native police. Of cultivation they are guiltless.' ' They get their|food with little trouble, so have no inducement to work. Now that they are half-civilised, their old customs and ' laws are nearly forgotten. Their marriage laws are no longer kept' as of yore, and _ the few survivors 'are allowed to follow their inclinations regardless of relationship.

Halfcastes are by no means uncommon', and some settlers have one or more gins constantly about their stations. . The boys are .often forcibly taken away by settlers from a distance who want a slave to, ,w,hom they will have to pay no wages. If they try to escape they are taught by corporal punishment that thoy are no longer free. Civil rights they have none, and though occasionally a settler has been' tried for shooting an absconding or offending black boy no jury has thought lit in Queensland to find a white man guilty of murder for killing a "nigger." In the bush social ostracism would, be the certain result of any attempt by a white man to defend by law a black boy from his owner's brutality. Escape is not easy for them, as they are usually brought from a distance, and the blacks of the neighbourhood would either give the absconder up for a few sticks of tobacco, or resort to a more forcible method of putting out of the way one who might bring on them the dreaded native police, and who, not understanding their dialect, is looked. upon as an alien. That civilisation has been to them anything but a cur.-;e it would be hypocrisy to deny. Not allowed to wander over the old huntinggrounds, they are compelled to loaf about the towns and stations, doing odd jobs for any one who wants them, and seldom recover from the diseases which are a present from their more enlightened white brethren. The Colonial Government still keeps up the fiction of paying for then country by giving to each of them on the Queen's Birl.hdaya blanket worth five or six shillings. The vices of the whites they quickly imitate ; their virtues they rarely see, and never copy. A few years hence and their land will know them no more ,; their utter destruction is .on] y a cuiestion of time. But unless forcible dispossession lie justice, unless murder and slavery be the outcome of colonisation, unless humanity be a fraud and a mockery, and breechloaders the , Nineteenth-Century missionaries— unless, in short, might be right, Queenslanders ought to blush at the result of their boasted Christian civilisation,— lbid,