PRIMITIVE CUSTOMS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1869, 1 October 1913, Page 8

PRIMITIVE CUSTOMS.

THE ABORIGINAL.

SAVACERY AND HEROISM. Professor Baldwin Spencer, who, at the request of the Fisher Administration, spent last year among the Northern Territory blacks as Spccial Commissioner of Native Affairs, has comlnonced a series of reports to tho Federal Government, and many interesting facts about the aborigines nro now being recorded for tho first time. His general observations, says the latest Sydney "Sun," include many new ideas. The Northern Territory is now'the freest and happiest abode of the aboriginal. There he is free to live undisturbed in his wild and natural stato. Unless ho seeks vice or drink, or a lazy life, he sees little or nothing of white men. He lives as his father lived before him, and as his white conqueror's ancestors lived in the stone ago. Enormous reservations liavo been mado for him, and moro are, at Professor Spencer's request, being alienated for tho dwindling generations of bJnck Australians. But reservations do not figuro in the black man's mind. All tho land is his, and over the land he roams, essentially a nomad, with 110 other "home" ■than a favourite camping-place, and no other house than a bark shelter. At tho native compounds, which are being prepared for the "civilised" aborigines of the north, houses of bark and tin are being erccted under Government supervision, but the real savages remain wanderers in the interior. First Australian Umbrellas. The territory aborigines had umbrellas many generations before the eighteenth century Sydney girl introduced them to Australia. On Melville and Bathurst Islands great use is mado of sheets of stringybark, about Bft. by 2sft., stripped from the trees with tomahawks. With these tho natives build sometimes domeshaped, sometimes tent-shaped mia mias. These they move from campingground to camping-ground, and they have a simple but effective old practice of just picking up a sheet of bark, folding it in two, and using it as an umbrella. Tho violent monsoonal deluges worry them not, and, if they aro overtaken by heavy rain out in tho bush, away from camp, they huddle together under their umbrellas, with a trench scooped by hand to carry off tho water that streams to the ground. When the rain ceases they pick up their belongings and march away cheerfully. . Professor Spencer remarks with interest that tbe aboriginals have been content with this primitive protection against the weather, although tlioy have slain many hundreds of thousands of well-furred oppossums and kangaroos. It is a remarkable fact that tho native, although he feels tho cold keenly, has never realised that those creatures of tho bush could provido him with a warm covering. Ho lias always cooked his animals in tho skin, to keep all tho juices inside, and therefore the first thing he does is to put tho entire animal on tho firo and singo the hair off. Amongst the semi-civilised blacks tho custom is for tho wholo family, to huddle together at night, along with tho dogs, under its bark shelters, with sheets of paper bark under and above and around them, and perhaps with two or tlireo small fires close by.

Troubled With Insects. The aborigines are no more immune from tropical disease than white people, and they suffer terribly from mosquitoes, whjch infect them with fever, in many parts they build special wetseason huts, each mado of a framework of branches very much like the ribs and keel of a boat upside down. Theso are covered all over closely with stringybark, and only a small entrance is left. Through it the natives crawl until the black, airless .hole can nold no more, and there, with perhaps a smoke-tire going, they huddle together all night long in a more or less hopeless attempt to evade the mosquitoes. Naturally their nights,_ during tho mosquito season, are a misery. . The flies torment them, sometimes covering their faces thickly;

A few tribes get to the hills in tho bad seasons. In one district Profes-or Spencer found a path used for long years as a track to some rock shelters high above. Every night, as soon as the sun sets, a long procession of natives winds up the hillside from the plains around tho billabong and river, the women carrying their piccaninnies and pitchers containing water and lily roots and yams, and the men carrying 'their spears and clubs. For the most part the natives wander about the country from one feeding-grtiund to another, according to tho nature of tho season. Jungle Ufo. When the time comes for the turtle to lay its eggs they go to the layingground on some sandy beach. When the lagoons and billabongs are alive with young geese tho natives are there camping close by and catching them by tho score; Ivhen birds are scarce they go to the lily ponds and feed on roots and stems and seeds, and in tho inland drier part-s they gather together on tho larger and more permanent waterholes, where fish and shellfish and birds and vegetable food can be secured longer than elsewhere. The momont the rains fall, off they scatter to take advantage of supplies that do not exist during the dry season.

Equally eharaeteristic with this nomadio habit, in fact, intimately associated with it, is "the fact that tho native has no idea whatever of the cultivation of crops, nor of the domestication of animals. In this respect he is far lower than the Papuan, tho New Zealander, or the usual African native. Aboriginal Socialism. Great difficulty in dealing fairly with tlip aboriginals is caused by their intensely communistio habits. They have very little idea of private property. If you give a man, say, a stick of tobacco, thero are certain individualSj such as men who might lawfully be his fathors-in-law, to whom he is obliged by custom to give some; and oven if they are not on tho spot, he will immediately sliare it with others. Give a man ' a shirt for work that he has done for you. and the chances are that you will fina a friend of his, who has done nothing except ask for it, wearing it next day. On manj'' stations and in many private houses |lio work is done by a few natives ; but ovcryono at hand shares in the proceeds, whether these be clothes, food, or tobacco; and it never occurs to them that tho lazy loafer is living at the expense of his. more industrious brother. All Evil Duo to Magic. Tho natives liavo no idea of disease or pain of any kind as being due to anything bnt evil magic, excepting that which is causcd by an actual accident that they ran sec. If a man has a headache it is evil magic that lias got insido him, and he will wear, in some cases, his wife's head lings, so that the magie may pass into them, and bo thrown away with them into the bush. Anything that they do not understand, they associate with magic. One of the most, striking and characteristic examples of this is the fact that when they first came across the track (if a cart tliev thought it was a path along which evil magic was passing, and it' they were obliged to cross it tlic.v jumped over it as"high in the air as they could, lest the magic should enter them.