EMPTY AUSTRALIA.

Otago Witness, Issue 3117, 10 December 1913, Page 72

EMPTY AUSTRALIA.

THE ABORIGINAL IN THE NORTHERN TERRITORY. (Br Elsie R. Masson.) VI. In the years to come, when the .Northern Territory supports a large white population, there will be much praise given to the pioneers who first opened up the country. There is another helping today in their work whose services are not always recognised—the Australian aboriginal. Let us be fair, and give him due credit. He, too, is" taking his share in the task of blazing a trail for civilisation to follow. Pioneering is nearly always unconscious. The white pioneer is not actuated by a wish to benefit future generations, but by the desire to make a fortune whilst living the wild free life that appeals to him. The black boy’s incentives are tucker and tobacco, but that does not detract trom the value of his work. It is the more pathetic that every service he renders the white man to-day is helping towards the destruction of his own race, and hastening the time when the abor.gines in the Northern Territory will be but a memory to the old and a myth to the young. Must the native of the Territory die out as he has done in the south? So far the same conditions that led to his extinction there are to be found here. White man s drink, white man’s diseases, neither of which he has the stamina to withstand, have already begun their work of degeneration. It seems as if Nature were determined that the race, which has not toiled by slow ways to civilisation, made mstakes, given sacrifices, shall uqt be fit to accept its benefits, and shall only 'perish of it. If the blackfellow attempts to leap at one bound the chasm of ages, he will fall and be annihilated. So far the white man has reached nut no hand to help him, but only tossed across to him from his side of the gulf a stick of tobacco, a box of matches, and a bottle of grog. Now he has suddenly realised his duty towards the race whose land he’ has taken, and is doing his best to build a bridge for him by which he may cross in safety. It remains to be seen if it can be done. In the most settled parts of the conn-, try, where the natives are most in danger of contamination, are established Protectors of Aborigines, under the direction of a Chief Protector, whose office is in Darwin. The protector of a district sees that all the blacks in the employ of white men are properly treated; he sees that they do not get any intoxicating drink, looks after their health, reports an epidemic amongst them to the medical officer in Darwin, and sends any case needing especial care into the Darwin Hospital. No one is allowed to employ blacks without a license, and no one can visit the camp, where they go after the day’s work, without permission. On the outback stations the natives are nearly always well looked after, as, apart from considerations of humanity, it does not pay to ill-treat a black. It is on the points of civilisation Darwin, Pine Creek, and in the mining districts that the danger is greatest, for it is here that the Chinese arc- settled. The Chinese are responsible for most of the detnoralising of the natives in the past. They enslave them w.th cheap grog and opium, to which they fall easy victims. Opium, smuggled into the country by every cunning device, is too precious to be wasted, so, after a few pipefuls, just sufficient to give him the craving, the yellow man only spares the black fellow the ashes of what ho has smoked himself, but it is enough to make him his, body and soul. Hence no coloured man is granted a license to employ aborigines, and no black fellow is allowed into Chinatown of Darwin. In the future the natives will be kept in certain reserves, and schools will be established where they will learn reading and writing, and tne girls be taught domestic work, and the boys how to car center and labour on the land. What will be the result of this it is hard to say. At the best, it can only be an imitation of civilisation, but, if the aboriginal race can survive for two or three generations, its savage instincts may be replaced by those of a civilised community. The danger, of course, lies in over-protection. The black fellow must not be led to regard the “Guhment” as a soft-hearted parent, willing to supply innumerable blankets and sticks of tobacco and tucker just for the asking. He must be made to work for what he gets, or there is no hope for him. In the meantime, luckily for those who love the picturesque side of life in the Territory, the aboriginal there is still very far from civilisation Once away from the railway and you find him as his ancestors were —wild, unclad, scarred all over with cuts full of tribal import, still holding corroborees, still drinking in the wisdom of the white-haired medicine man, still burying his dead in trees, painting crude images on rocks and coloured clays, revering his totem, and imbued with the magic and devilry that he sees in every animal, every waterhole every manifestation of nature. He does not willingly speak of these things—“white man growl, say ‘ you silly fella blackfella,’ ’’ so he slyly hides away his beliefs. The few of whom he tells his secrets are not always qualified to pass them on to the world, and were it not for the work of Baldwin Spencer the greater part of these myths, beliefs, and laws would have been lost to science. The quickness of the average native is a surprise to those who have always heard that the Australian aboriginal belongs to one of the lowest races extant. The blackfellow’s mind is that of an absolutely uneducated, intelligent child. He has the same acuteness of observation, the same

power of mimicry, the same unerring sense of justice that telis him whether he is being fairly treated or no, the same irresponsible nature. He is as unhesitating in his likes and dislikes, as difficult to compel, as easy to persuade. He respects firmness, and invariably takes advantage of leniency. He never cringes, is never servile. He laughs and talks f#eely with his boss, and frequently addresses him by his Christian name. One emotion he knows nothing of, and that is gratitude. If you say to a blackfellow, “Jim, you come longa me to-morrow, I give you good fella clothes,” he answers casually “Orright,” and accepts them without a word. This is because the blackfellow has never had any idea of saving or putting aside. If he himself is not actually using a possession at the moment anyone else is welcome to it. A blackfellow who is smoking a pipe is given a cigarette; he sticks it behind his ear; a brother native strolls up to him, takes the cigarette, lights and smokes it, not a word passing between them during the transaction. Similarly if the white man has dozens of suits which he obviously cannot wear all at once, there seems to the black no earthly reason why he should keep them to himself. Things to the aboriginal are things merely, and have no relative value in money or a future saving of time. The white man, in self-defence, has had to impose his own laws on the blades, and in consequence there are frequent court cases of aboriginals' charged with cattle stealing, being on a prohibited area, or violence to one of their kind. At the trial the blackfellow is told he must answer “ straight fellow,” and the jess civilised he is, the more likely he is to do so. “Paddy, you bin killem Judy dead, fellow?” he is asked. “Va-as, me bin kil icm dead fella orright,” answers the culprit mildly surprised at such an unnecessary question, when he knows that everyone knows he killed Judy. Then follows a term at Fanny Bay gaol, a collection of white buildings three miles from Darwin. Here he enjoys unheard-of luxuries —good tucker, tobacco, a stretcher, and a mosquito net. During the day he works At the Government gardens. After rerelease the prisoner, no longer a myall, as a wild black is called, but well trained, disciplined, and in the pink of physical condition,, may choose to work in town, or he may return as a hero to his own country, where ho assumes great airs of superiority, and is much looked up to by those of his tribe who have not yet been “longa Fanny Bay.” The Australian aboriginal has always been a nomad, with no house or patch of cultivation to tether him more to one spot than another. But the boundaries of his “ country,” the district within which ho wanders, are very sharply defined and, until the coming of white people, he left them at his peril. In each county a totally different language is spoken, and it is quite common to hear two blacks conversing together in pidgin English. Sooner or later the aboriginal has an intense longing to return to his country, and it is this that makes his labour an uncertain element, for at any moment he may be seized with wandering fever, and announce his intention of going for a “bush walk-about.” No power on earth can stop him. The white man, who has just the same desire for change from city life, is forced by circumstances to control it. All the difficulties of luggage and trains and leaving his business make it for him an elaborate matter. But the blackfellow can stalk away at a moment’s notice, with nothing but a bundle of spears, and he is provided for. He knows where to find water, where to grub for yams and lily root, how to pull bandicoots out of their holes, how to catch lizards and frogs, how to track and spear kangaroo, how to make fire with two sticks and a stone. Ho is utterly independent of everything but his own senses, and so what is there to keep him back when Lhe bush-longing makes him restless and unhappy ? The supply of black labour can, therefore, not be relied upon, although in times of emergency it has been useful, as, for example, during' the strike of white workmen, when a team of aboriginals coaled the Government steamer in wonderfully quick time. Nearly every home has its lubra, who scrubs, sweeps, and washes, and its black boy, who cuts wood, takes messages, and is generally useful. As you pass by a house, a black shock head and a grin suddenly appear over the fence, and a long thin hand holding a pipe waves you good-day. In camp it is always the black boy who is up before anyone else and away to bring in the horses; it is he who points the way when there is no track. More than once an aboriginal has saved the life of a white man lost in the bush or dying for want of water. A New Zealander, manager of one of the Government experimental farms, declares that, properly managed, the Territory native works as well as the Maori. On the outback stations the black boys and sometimes the lubras make splendid stockriders. It is the black boy again who patiently waters the station vegetables, carrying the water laboriously in kerosene tins from the river or lagoon. When an extra mail has to be fetched and carried, it is the black boy who sets off cheerfully on a march of a hundred miles with nothing but a small billy for water, waits only for a meal at the other end, and turns and goes back again, faithfully guarding the precious letters, swimming flooded rivers in the wet season, and walking quietly into the station yard without a word, after what would have been a heroic journey and a life’s adventure to a white man. No one doubts that the white man is capable of doing these things. It is not that he could not, but frequently that he would not, more often still that he is not there to do them. When in the future the picture is painted of the pioneers —the stalwart, strenuous men and woman passing on through primeval bush—let there also be depicted, marching briskly in their shadow, the aboriginal black boy and his lubra.