infinitely more becoming to them than the conventional garb of civilised life is to those belonging to that higher order of humanity. The men wear a belt round the loins under the cloak, whilst the women wear a band round the same portion of the person, said band having a thick fringe all round it of about a foot in depth. The fringe is made of innumerable strips of opossum or wallaby skin. Of course neither of these bands or belts are seen unless the rugs are thrown off. Both sexes wear armlets made of opossum skin on the upper portion of both arms, and a netted band about an inch and a half wide round the brow. This band is coloured red by means of ochre mixed with fat. Round the neck both sexes wear strings of reeds cut into sections of an inch long, which, when carefully dried, are of a clear pale straw colour, admirably calculated to form an agreeable contrast to their glossy, ebon-hued necks and shoulders. They also make necklets from the autennae of the lobster, which, when the fishes have been cooked, are of a bright red. These, with a kangaroo tooth or two dangling from their hair by the sides of the head, and a bone or short section of reed through the middle cartilage of the nose make up all the ornaments with which they feel proud to decorate themselves. These ornaments are not donned on great occasions, such as high days and holidays (not having any such festive periods in their calendar), but merely as the whim takes them, or for want of other occupation.
The only distinctive mark whereby there can be no mistake made as to the sex is that all the men have the two upper front teeth knocked out. This operation is performed when the boys arrive at the age of puberty. For three months after this torturing ordeal the youths are not permitted to look upon a woman young or old, as the sight of one during this probation would be the means of entailing countless misfortunes, such as the withering of the limbs, loss of eyesight, and in fact general decrepitude.
Youths, prior to the extraction of the teeth, dare not eat of emu flesh, wild turkey, swan, geese, or black duck, or of the eggs of any of these birds. Did they infringe this law in the slightest possible manner, their hair would become prematurely grey, and the flesh of their limbs would waste away and shrivel up. Any members of their tribes having malformations of limb or body are pointed out as living examples of the dire fate of those who knowingly commit a breach of this aboriginal law. These cripples that are thus put forth as living illustrations have had it impressed upon their minds from their earliest youth that their respective infirmities are entirely due to such indiscretions, and this has been impressed upon their minds so persistently, they have not a doubt on the subject, therefore give implicit credence to the story.
Having such dread penalties continually placed before them, the various kinds of tabooed food are carefully avoided by the aboriginal youth; thus the full-grown men and women of the tribe come in for many of the good things, which they would not, but for this wise decree. Nevertheless, the makers of this law were wise in their day and generation, and thereby conferred a grand benefit upon themselves and their descendants, which is perceptible even to the present day.
As a rule the aborigines have not any great capacity for physical exertion; at least, they cannot compete with average white men, when violent and long drawn out fatigue chances to be the order of the day; they have thews and sinews enough, too; in fact, usually their whole physique is unexceptionable, but they lack what is commonly termed pluck; therefore, it takes but a small matter beyond common to make them give in. They, however, always evince a certain amount of shame at those times, as is evidenced by their invariably attributing their apparent want of stamina to the fact of their having a sore finger, or some equally trivial ailment.
They can bear the pangs of hunger, however, wonderfully well; a whole week's starvation is not by any means an uncommon occurrence with them. At those times, they will not stir out of their camps; indeed, they will scarcely turn themselves round, unless perhaps when they think it will lessen their discomfort somewhat if they give their waist-belts an extra twist, thereby contracting the vacuum which lack of food has made so painfully apparent.
1 ↑ Moorongor: Girl
2 ↑ As wives are always obtained by exchange, the relationship of brother-in-law and sister-in-law is usually double.
3 ↑ Enforced bachelors: Those men not having any sisters or wards to give in exchange for wives.
CHAPTER IV.
BLACKFELLOWS' OVENS, HOW FORMED; MOURNING FOR THE DEAD, SIGNS THEREOF; OF SEPULTURE, AND THE CEREMONIES CONNECTED THEREWITH.
Blackfellows' ovens, or cooking places, have been a fertile source of argument for many years, some holding that they are not cooking places at all, but a description of Tumuli, left by some race long since passed away, and quite forgotten; still, so far as the general public are aware, none of the writers on the point have had sufficient curiosity to dig into the mounds, and so set it at rest once and for all.
Blackfellows, ovens are not misnomers, but to all intents and purposes are genuine cooking places[1], and the following is the manner of their formation:—
A family, or perhaps several families, as the case may be, select a site for their camp, where abundance of game and other sources of food exist, and are procurable with the least expenditure of time and trouble. Towards the middle of the afternoon the hunters drop into camp, with the result of the day's industry, consisting, in all probability, of all sorts and sizes; for our present purpose, however, we will imagine the game to consist of opossums only.
As soon as the hunters have seated themselves comfortably, they set to work skinning the opossums, whilst several of the lyoores[2] go off with their yamsticks. When they reach the spot which they had before selected for the purpose, they begin with a will to excavate a hole three feet in diameter and eighteen inches deep. During the digging of the hole, any pieces of clay of about the size of cricket balls which are turned out are carefully placed on one side. When the hole has been dug sufficiently deep, it is swept or brushed out with some boughs, or a bunch of grass; it is then filled to the top with firewood (which the lyoores had previously collected for that purpose), upon which the selected pieces of clay are carefully placed. The wood is then ignited, and by the time it is all burned the clay nodules have become baked, until they are exactly similar to irregular sections of well-burnt brick; of course, they are red hot. When this result has been properly achieved, the hot clay is removed from the hole; for this purpose they use two pieces of stick, about eight inches long, holding them both in one hand, and working them deftly, even as a cook-maid uses a pair of tongs. The natives now term these sticks tongs. Prior to the advent of white men, they had no name for them, other than kulky[3]. The use of these tongs is an accomplishment possessed by old and young alike. This dexterity almost seems an aboriginal gift, as few, if any, white men have ever attained to any degree of proficiency in their use.
After the hot clay is removed from the hole, the ashes are carefully swept out, and a thin layer of grass slightly moistened, placed over the bottom, and round the sides, upon which the prepared opossums are nicely packed, and then covered over with more damp grass. The hot clay nodules are then spread equally over the top of the grass, when the whole oven is then closed with the finer earth which originally came out of the excavation. Should this covering be too thin to keep the steam from escaping, it is supplemented by earth, dug in immediate proximity (this supplemented soil accounts fully for the depressions always found about the bases of these ovens). Ashes are never employed for the outside covering, because, being tine, they would percolate through the interlining both of the grass and clay nodules, thereby adding an amount of grit which would not improve the flavour
