REMINISCENCES OF THE AUSTRALIAN BLACKS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2373, 24 August 1899, Page 59

REMINISCENCES OF THE AUSTRALIAN BLACKS.

4. . By Richard Henrt.

EELS AND BLACKPELLOWS. I remember when a j^oungster my father talking with the blackfellows in the street in Warrnambool and asking them pointedly how they knew that the eels were going to run up the little river that night, but I did not understand their answer. However, as they had torches and told us that there would be plenty of eels we went down to where the drifting sand was trying to slop the river, and sure enough the eels were there, and the darkies knew how to catch them quickly. They got as many eels as they wanted, though their torches did not last long — not half as long as I should have liked, for there was plenty of fun while it lasted. Tlnee or four men went into the gentle .stream up to their knees with the ateelpuiuled, Kit-bless spear in one hand and the torch in thu oiher, and with watcliful activity speared an eel here and there and jerked them out on the bank, where I assisted some lubras to kill them and put them in their knitted bags. I could hardly see an eel at all on that yellv>w sandy bottom, yeb they rarely missed one with thoir light single spears, which on that occasion were pieces of .steel wire like penhandles lashed on bamboo reeds 6ft long and as thick as my finger. Those eels were from about one to three pounds weight, and though the Merri and its s~n amps were famous for eels the heaviest J ever caught theie in after years was only 4|!b. In New Zealand 101b eela are commoner than three pounders in Victoria, though I beard of a few big ones being taken there in lakes. Years afterwaids I often went to that place to try and find out something about those travelling eels parties, hut seldom saw one on that shallow sandy bottom, though I could always spear a fow in the mud just above it ; and how the darkies knew that the eels would be there has always been a puzzle to me, and is likely to remain so. It gives a hint of what we lost by thinking the blackfellows stupid and ignorant — perhaps more interesting notes on the natural history of their own country than ever our intelligence is likely to glean. It sometimes seemed to me that they thought as little of our knowledge in their department as we did of theirs in others, for I often failed to get explanations because it was so difficult to make me understand. This was the rule, and not the exception, for very few people ever got satisfactory explanations from them about their ordinary crafts. I remember well that I failed about those eels, also about the greyling (our upukororas), which we used to call "fresh herrings." Those fish frequented that river in their usual mysterious way, and once we caught a lot of them when angling for " blackfish " near Woodford. They appeared to be all coming down stream, and we were only there by accident, and perhaps had not seen a hen-ing for six months before, but next day we heard that the blacks had caught large numbers lower down where they had set nets waiting for them. SOmE MORE BLACKFELLOW OBSERVATIONS. A blackfcllow told me that it was the father emu that took care of the eggs and young ones, and though I must kare read nearly a barrowful of scientific natural history, it was perhaps 40 years before I read any corroboration of so easily noted and important an item relating to Australia 1 !

"national bird." So it is no wonder the poor darkie thought us slow and stupid from his point of view. One of them also told me that sheep ate " grasshoppers " (as he called the locusts) to save themselves from starvation, which I proved to be true by finding some in a sheep's stomach, yet I never met an Australian shepherd or sheep owner who would not laugh at this with derision ; and so it may be with hundreds of other points that we don't even dream about putting to the test or proving. THE BOOMERANG MYTH. For instance, our ideas of the boomerang and its use were positively too silly far ■the darkie to contradict, because it was utterly- hopeless for his untrained logic to penetrate such stupidity, and therefore he wisely said nothing. I heard by the conversation of two savants recently that they had somewhat reluctantly j given up the idea that a boomerang could fly away and strike an opponent and then return to the thrower as a matter of course. " everybody knew that," and if it was the opinion of the ablest men in Dunedin the chances are that the rank and file of Australasia believes in it still, though it would only take about a minute's thought to prove its absurdity. I heard an accomplished lady discussing i a pair of boomerangs at a show, and she sagely remarked that they were not "comeback boomerangs," because they " were not bent enough.' Probably her information was derived from a magazin article of the Rougemont type, which I tried to read until I round that neither tho writer nor the sketcher knew anything about the subj-r:t more than the usual hash of errors " to which they added a new hash of their own —among the latter being the piece of padding about the native taking the idea ot the boomerang from a falling'gum leaf. Tbip is a likely scrap to be permanently m- { grafted on Australian literature just for ! want of the half minute's thought requiri-d ! to explode it.' : The darkies were a race of throwers \ that got a large part of their food l>v the expert use of missiles, and may b;m> used a boomerang experimentally and otherwise for ten thousand years, but they kept no record of their discoveries and inventions. Two of our ideas about the boomerang are comically opposed to each other, and yet appear to excite no derision from anyone but Mark Twain. The Grst is that 'it is used as a missile to strike an opponent, and of course we all know that; the first qualify in an arrow, a bullet, nr ,t ?f)ie is that it will fly straight, for we cnuli! never hit Aunt Sally with an oyjtsr shell | except by accident. Therefore "a boomerang should fly straight according to our first idea, but according to our second it will describe such grand curves that it will actually turn round and come back" to the thrower.- Both of which are purely po-pular errors. THE BLACKS AS THROWERS. That magazine article gave a diagram of a boomerang flying along, bumping three times on the ground, then going up in the air to describe a great curve and back lo the thrower, turning a somersault over his head and falling before him. Again it states that " it almost always retains sufficient momentum at the finish to oury itself in the soft earth or sand," and further on that " the thrower was dexterous enough to catch it in his hand before it reached the ground." So that the writer of that article must be a real Australian " lyre-bird," and thf* readers of that magazine must have a swallowing capacity almost equal to that of sperm whales. To go through the other trashy item 3in that story would enable a. body to realise the darkies' dislike to "tell the whitefellows anything, because they don't want to know." It is generally lost sight of that great physical strength is required as well as dexterity and judgment, to show off with a boomerang, and that the darkies arm has been for ages developed in that direction because his living depended on it, and his daily wants kept him in constant practice throwing spears, waddies, and boomerangs, while the white man has had no such training. I was once coming home in a boat from shooting when a few teal flew up close at hand out of the reeds, arid the darkie took up his footstick and broke one of their necks, while a second or two later I missed, them with the gun. It takes a severe blow to knock an opossum off a limb, because they will sometimes cling on when shot, yet I often saw a. darlcie do it at a distance of 10ft or 20ft with the pure force of the blow ; and I have seen the Aunt Sally man at the races tak.3 up" his kit and run away from a crowd that insisted on getting the darkies lo throw for them, so true was thenaim that his bank could not stand it. The best throwers did not seem to be so very strong, but no one need doubt that the bones and muscles had been modified for their purpose, as they are in the American trotting horse and everything else in which such modification is required. I remember reading or hearing in the early days of Australian cricketers that a blackfellow beat them all at throwing the cricket ball, which, if a fact, mig-ht be worth putting in the records if some cricketer could hunt it jap. I think the thrower was among one of the first darkie teams that went to England. THE DARKIE AS A PHYSICIAN. Now for a scrap of their knowledge as f)hysicians. One of those cricketers took ung ailment at Home, and was given up by the doctors on his return, who said " that he was a gone nigger," and would never play cricket again. His tribesmen and women took him home to Corongmitc, stripped him and blistered him in the sun, and he went back to Geelong and played cricket again. Many New Zealanders know something about the sympathy of the kakas for one of their fellows in distress, and make use of this knowl«dg« sometimes to attract and shoot them. The white cockatoos have the same sort of sympathy, and the darkies attracted them artistically by first simulating their cries of curiosity and bra-

vado, and then of distress. Few of our people can realise this idea, Jbecause , we won't admit that birds have what may be called a language, but the darkies actually understood it, and could imitate enough of it at least to rouse cockatoos and plovers. The spurwing plovers always occupied open ground (where the boomerang could fly aloft), were full of curiosity and sympathy, and easily attracted before the advent of guns. COCKATOOS AND PLOVERS. The cockatoos got most of their food from grass seeds, of which we have heard almost nothing, except perhaps in the story of Burk and Wills eating nardoo at Cooper's Creek ; yet I think that the several kinds of cockatoos ate little else but seeds, and must have migrated to find them all the year round, because the rosebreasted cockatoo only came to our district in the grain season. They took such a heavy toll from the wheat paddocks that many outside farmers used to keep a boy going round with a gun to frighten them away. The yellowcrested cockatoo used to be a nuisance at seed time, and the fact is evident that I knew little about them compared with what might have been learned if anybody kad taken an interest in such things at that time. I remember a good old farmer telling us that ne once shot 18 of them in one shot on a post and rail fence, which may give an idea of their tameness and abundance in the early days, but the shot gun soon changed all that, and by the time I was able to carry a gun the cockatoos were notoriously wild and cunning, because ofthe number wounded by the showers of shot ; and the blackfellow's boomerang was just out of date, so tihat I only saw it kill birds on two or three occasions. I believe that it was the dense flights of those birds and the plovers with their curiosity and sympathy that called for the invention of the boomerang, and out of that it came in the dim and distant past without any reference to the falling gum leaves or even to our other dear old yarn about its ability to return. This latter idea is on the same plane of credulity with our ->ew Zealand story about the kea being a-natomist enough to find kidney fat through the sheep's short ribs and backbone. FICTION PREFERRED TO TRUTH. The popularity of the Rougemont yarns in the Wide World Magazine shows that the great majority of readers pcefer tall yarns to true ones, even when the true ones are just as wonderful. I read recently in a popular writer's articles that the emu could pick up its young one in its foot, also that the Australian anteater had a curly tail hanging over its back. There is an emu in the Dunedin. Gardens, and everyone can see for themselves the flexibility of those big toes for such a tender operation. Yet the yarn goes down, all right. And I suppose that there is an Australian anteater in the Museum, or at all events pictures of it are everywhere, showing not a sign of a tail. It is not in a carping spirit that these items are mentioned, but to show how mucjh salt is generally required with such stories unless they appeal to the understanding ; and I take it to be a necessary part of education nowadays that young people should know this to be constantly on their guard to defend themselves from sueh — well — stuffing is the only suitabh word I can think of.