PRIMITIVE AUSTRALIA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 245, 28 July 1937, Page 8

PRIMITIVE AUSTRALIA.

ABORIGINAL CULTURES BREAKING DOWN.

(Special to the “ Guardian.”) AUCKLAND, July 26

Mr E. 0. Stocker, who has been with several expeditions for anthropological research in central Australia, and who uses his leisure and his money to discover more about the aboriginals there, arrived by the Mariposa to-day on his way to Honolulu, where he will rest before returning to continue his quest. This quest he finds increasingly difficult as years go by, and civilisation makes further encroachments into the primitive culture of the natives. Research workers had to move farther out each time, and it would not be long before it would he impossible to find any natives in Australia who had not been contaminated by Western civilisation, said Mr (Stocker. Their cultures were fast being broken down, as was usually tlio case with native peoples. “New Zealand is a very good example of that,” he continued,' “for your Government is training the fine primitive cultures of the Maoris back to the Maori children. That condition never will happen in Australia, because there has been no indication of tlio Government wanting to preserve the cultures of the aboriginals. Moreover, the natives there are possessed of a crude intelligence and cannot tie knots, hut understand only how to twist things.” In his native habitat the aboriginal did not even use the skins of animals he killed. Those -skins would keep out cold in a climate which frequently went below zero in winter, but the natives seemed unable to apprehend anything beyond the simplest of motives. "Nevertheless the study of them, their habits and lives, was very absorbing, and the Rockefeller Foundation had spent much' money, through the National Council of Research in Australia, and had been able to collect much information.