FORTY YEARS AMONGST THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINALS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2652, 11 January 1905, Page 79

FORTY YEARS AMONGST THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINALS.

MR A. W. HOWITT'S NEW BOOK.

If, owing to the advent of the white man, the black man is slowly but surely disappearing from the face of the Australian continent, the white man is doing all that can possibly be done to collect, collate, and authenticate some facts cdncerning the origin and development of the black man whom he is supplanting. Whether the black man will ever be sufficiently grateful for the efforts which are being so extensively made to perpetuate his memory, and hand down to posterity a complete record of his rise and fall, is exceedingly doubtful ; but, from a scientific standpoint, the sidelights which these researches throw upon the beginnings of the race are most valuable and interesting. The literature dealing with the Australian aboriginal is already assuming formidable proportions. In 1899 Messrs Spencer and Gillen published their " Native Tribes of Central Australia," following this up with the publication last year of their work on " The Northern Tribes of Central Australia," recently reviewed in these columns ; Dr W. E. Roth has ably investigated that part of the continent inhabited by the North-Eastern tribes ; and now, to complete the survey of the native inhabitants of the Central and Eastern portion of Australia, comes the present work. There thus only remains the Western half of Australia to be anthropologically explored to render the history of the aboriginal as perfect as ths material now available will allow.

Mr A. W. Howitt- is admirably equipped for the task he has undertaken. As explorer, police magistrate, and anthropologist, this Victorian veteran is universally recognised as an expert in aboriginal matters. Long before the time when he brought to light the fate of the Burke and Wills expedition, Mr Howitt had familiarised himself with native habits and customs, and, as he tells in the preface to his book, the materials now made use of are the result of 40 years' strenuous labour in this particular field of research, commenced during explorations in Central Australia. In his earlier researches, from 1873 onward, Dr Lori-Tier Fison was associated with Mr Howitt, who expresses regret that Dr Fison's other engagements prevented him from assisting in the production of this completed record of their joint labours. The value of the 'present volume is enhanced from the fact that many of the more important conclusions arrived at have from time to time been published in the form of memoirs to the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, several of the chapters being these memoirs elaborated or modified. Mr Howitt has thus had the benefit of the advice and criticism of fellow-anthropolo-gists, notably Messrs Spencer and Gillen and J. G. Frazer.

In many respects, of course, Mr Howitt traverses the same ground as Messrs Spencer and Gillen, and this is seen at a glance by a rehearsal of the chapter headings — viz. :—' On the Origin of the Aborigines of Tasmania and Australia," " Tribal Organisation," " Social Organisation," " Relationship Terms," " Marriage Rules," Tribal Government," " Medicine Men and Magic," " Beliefs and Burial Practices," "Initiation Ceremonies." " Messengers and Message Sticks,'' and "Various Customs." The scope of the work implies a wealth of detail covering a curious divergence in the manners and customs of the various tribes, which, whilst of the utmost importance to the painstaking anthropologist (who, by means of these comparisons, is able to slowly unravel the tangled web of man's h\j*ory). yet are scarcely the sort of thing which the general reader delights. But there are a number of important conclusions of a more popular nature, at which Mr Howitt

* The Native Tribes of South-East Australia. By a A. TT. Howitt, D.Sc. London: Macrnillan aud Co. (Linutedi. 21s net.

arrives, and which may fitly be noticed here. First in order, then, comes the muchdebated question of the origin of the Australian aboriginal. Various solutions have been essayed inferentially from language, j from custom, and from the physical char- ! acter of the tribes, and these Mr Howitt sets forth in chronological order, commencing with the theory, advanced in 1839 by Captain Robert Fitzroy, of " Beagle " fame, that the Australian aboriginal originated either with a party of negroes driven by storms from the' coast of Africa, and thus reaching New Zealand or Van ■ Diemen's Land, or to negroes escaping or being brought to the northernshoresof Tasmania as slaves by "red men." "This long list of views recorded by various writers on the Tasmanian and Australian aborigine concludes with the more recent and popular idea stated in 1892 by , Dr John Fraser, in the introduction to his work, "An Australian Language." Dr Fraser holds that the negroid population of Australia originated in Babylonia, and that it was driven into Southern India by the " confusion of tongues " which followed the attempt of Nimrod to establish dominion over his fellows. The overthrow of the Chaldean monarchy, about 1500 j 8.C., by Arab tribes, drove thousands of ' Kushites into Southern India, where they took refuge in the mountains of the Deccan, and where to the present day \ there are Dravidian and Kolarian black- ; skinned and savage races. The Baby- > lonian Kushites are then supposed to have been driven out of India into the Malay Peninsula, Papua, and Timor by Dravidian tribes, who came down from Central Asia. Finally, they found their way to Australia. Laying on one side all previous theories, Mr Howitt proceeds to " deal with tnis subject as it presents itself to me when looked at from the standpoint of present knowledge." He primarily draws a distinction between the Tasmanian and the Australian native. He quotes Dr E. B. Taylor as pointing out that "the Tas- j manians were representative of the stoneage development, in a stage lower than that of the Quaternary period of Europe, and the distinction may be claimed for them of being the lowest of nomad tribes. The Australians stand on a somewhat higher level than the Tasmanians. They are better armed, with a formidable " reed spear propelled by the throwing-stick, the boomerang, and a variety of clubs, which serve either at close quarters or as missiles ; and for defence they have the shield. Their canoes are far in advance of the raft ! or the bundle of bark of the Tasmanians, J and are able if necessary to cross narrow j arms of £he sea under circumstances where i the latter would have been destroyed. \ Their stone implements are' either ground to an edge or fashioned by chipping, as among tribes living where material for the ground and polished type of hatchet is not procurable. But even in such cases j these are obtained by barter from other : tribes. The Australians may therefore be J classed as representing hunting tribes of i the Neolithic age." Mr Howitt then proceeds to quote Professor Giglioli to the effect lhafc there is no instance recorded of a people who have lost the art of navigation which they had once acquired, and, taking this together [ with the absence of evidence as to the | Tasmanian native's ability to .construct a canoe able to cross an ocean — or even such a sea strait as that between Tasmania and j Australia, — he comes to the conclusion that j " one of the fundamental principles to be - adopted in discussing the origin of these savages must be that they reached Tas- ; mania at- a. time when there was a land-i ! communication between it and Australia." j Mr Howitt similarly discards the ' general idea that the Australian natives originally arrived in canoes or ships on the coasts of Australia, and is led to believe ! that " the Australian ancestors, as well as j I the Tasmanian, must be held to have | , reached this continent by some land connection, or, at least, a land connection so ' nearly complete that the breaks in it might ; be crossed in vessels no better than the bark canoe of the'present time." In support of this theory Mr Howitt calls to his aid the evidence of physical geography and geology, and concludes that " there was a land communication between New Guinea and Australia at a comparatively recent period, by which the Tas- ; manians and subsequently the Australians might have entered this continent." The fact that New Guinea, Australia, and Tasmania were, during our time, and, as to the two former, still are, occupied respectively by well-defined types of man, is taken by Mr Howitt to show that the Papuans. Australians, and Tasmanians must have occupied their respective locations in such manner that Bass Strait stopped the march of the Australians and Torres Strait of the Papuans. Mr Howitt's theory, involving, » s it -does, such tremendous changes in physical- configuration, implies an antiquity for the Australian aboriginal much greater than is generally allowed. Oil this point Mr Howitt remaikb :—"All: — "All that can perhaps bs said as to the antiquity of man in the Australian continent appears to be that he may have inhabited it as a contemporary of the extinct marsupial fauna, the giant forms of which, equally with himself, appear to have been isolated by those depressions of the surface which j formed Torres and Bass Straits. These changes in the physical geography of Ausi tealia. tf>ay have occurred/ al a somewhat

, later geological period than seems to hare been usually accepted." By this manner of reasoning Mr Howitt arrives at the conclusion that the Tasmanians were the antochonous inhabitants of Australia, their preservation in Tasmania being due to the formation of Bass Strait. Assuming that the Australians were, on their anival upon the scene, better armed and in a higher state -of culture than the Australians, it is fair to assume either that the two races amalgamated, or that the Tasmanians were subjected and finally exterminated by the superior race. As regards probable origin, Mr Howitt places the Tasmanian among the Oceanic Negritos, who are now found scattered in ! small tribes from the Andaman Islands to the Philippines and New Guinea, and not , among the later -Melanesians. With a 1 view of further distinguishing the Tasmanians and Andamanese from tribes such as the Samangs' and Kalangs, Mr Howitt suggests the following hypothesis: — "An original Negrito population; as represented by the wild tribes of Malaysia; a subsequent offshoot, represented by the Andamanese and Tasmanians ; and another i offshoot, in a higher state of culture, originating the Melanesians." The adoption oi this theory requires, as the original stock of the. Australians, such a race- as would be supplied by the " low form of iCaucasian Melanochroi " suggested by Sir W. H. - Flower and Mr Lydekker. From such a stock Mr Howitt deems it possible that the Dravidians may in the past have -been derived. j Mr Howitt admits that his conclusions 1 necessarily demand a vast antiquity on the Australian continent for the Tasmanians, and a very long period of at least prehistoric time for the Australians. Whilst, however, admitting that the conclusions to which inquiry has led him may be modified by increased knowledge of new facts, Mr Howitt confidently declares that "the antiquity of occupation which"! have postulated for the origin of the aborigines of both Australia and Tasmania in this coni tinent will not be lessened." ** ! This brings us face to face with another ■ important matter. It will be remembered ! that, in their latest book dealing with tha ! natives of Central Australia, Messrs Spencer and Gillen were most emphatic in thenstatement that the tribes with whom they had been brought in contact, were, in their, primitive state, altogether deficient inwliat' is commonly known as the religious \idea. Mr Howitt has discovered amongst' .the tribes of the South-East a well-defined, belief in an ".all father, ".and this in -vieV-*-oi his expressed conviction concerning the/ antiquity of the race is well worth '-con-*' siderationl But this point, together with others of interest, must be reserved fo? j future notice.