Aboriginal culture

“ They are to be regarded as the type of aboriginal mind, as the measure of intellectual power of our Sons of the Forest; as speaking their sentiments, their hopes and their fears, whatever they were or are, whether elevated or depressed, whether raising the race or sinking it in the scale of untutored nations. ”

“ A neighbour of mine exclaimed, when I mentioned that I proposed making a small collection of the folk-lore legends of the tribe of blacks I knew so well living on this station, "But have the blacks any legends?"—thus showing that people may live in a country, and yet know little of the aboriginal inhabitants ”

“ Many a white man has let himself down into savage life and habits, but no tribe of aborigines has yet come up to the requirements, the honours, and the delights of European civilization. Like the tall wild grass before the prairie-fire, the aboriginal races are gradually but surely being swept away by the progress of civilization. ”

“ Reliable and learned authors who have made the aboriginal race of America an object of deep study and research, have arrived at the conclusion, that the numerous tribes into which they are divided, belong not to the same primitive family or generic stock, but are to be ranged under several well-defined heads or types. ”

“ Some of these various objects are the more interesting, as furnishing, so to speak, the last proofs of the aboriginal skill which, in proportion to the increasing intercourse of the savage tribes with European civilization, is rapidly diminishing, and in all the principal colonies may be considered as already extinguished. ”

“ I have often seen the aboriginal man in all his primeval wildness, when he first came in contact with the evils and benefits of civilization,—have admired his noble form and lofty bearing,—listened to his untutored and yet powerful eloquence, and yet have found in him the same humbling and melancholy proofs of his wretchedness and want, as is found in the remnants on our borders. ”

“ Happiness seems the essence of their existence, and indeed none but an aboriginal could, or would, keep on smiling under the terrible bondage which our vaunted civilization has imposed upon him.
Among the members composing a tribe, one finds a diversification of character and talent much the same as builds up a modern community—it includes orators, warriors, artists, and clowns. ”

“ In numbers they did not at any time exceed 20,000 souls, if they ever reached that number. Precarious subsistence and incessant warfare repressed numbers in all the aboriginal tribes, including the Village Indians as well. ”

“ For this purpose the United Band of Temperance Aboriginals was formed, blankets were distributed, moralising influences were brought to bear, and I am proud to be able to state my opinion, founded upon, statistics, that in the course of fifty years from the present time, not a single intoxicated aboriginal will be found in the length and breadth of the colony. ”

“ Furthermore let it be noted that, according to his explicit statement, the aboriginal village organization had broken down utterly, and the Indians were living in new places in conformity with new economic and social requirements. No wonder modern informants frequently cannot look past the period of upheaval and give us a clear picture of untouched aboriginal life before the white man came! ”

“ The opinion assumed, rather than advocated, by a large class of writers on this and kindred subjects is, that the aboriginal inhabitants of any country are the proprietors of every part of its soil of which they have been accustomed to make any use, or to which they have been accustomed to assert any title. This claim is represented as sacred, however ignorant such natives may be of the arts or of the habits of civilised life, however small the number of their tribes, however unsettled their abodes, and however imperfect or occasional the uses they make of the land. ”

“ There is a tradition—common, I believe, to many black tribes, even outside Australia—that, long before the coming of the white people into this country, two beautiful white girls lived with the blacks. ”

“ In those parts of the country which are in a prosperous condition ideas and manners imported from the coast districts are gradually overcoming and absorbing all aboriginal conceptions, but on the other hand, in jungle-covered and backward lands the colonists are always corrupted by the superstitions of the indigenous races. ”

“ The human figure, too, very often appears half in full and half in profile.
The aboriginal is a keen observer, and takes careful note of many things besides a kangaroo, a snake track, or other similar natural objects which may lead him to his daily bread. When travelling in the Buccaneer Archipelago in the far north-west I remember one of the natives drawing my attention to a peculiar formation in the clouds, and saying, in the Sunday Island dialect: “Arrar ninmiddi,” which means, literally: “Cloud knee.” ”

“ Why did not the aboriginal inhabitants leave us in letters carved on the rocks, traditions, which our learned and ingenious men could interpret? We know not what we have lost in our deprivation of wonderful mysteries. We wander by great oaks, and stony places unconscious of powers that linger there. The lore of demons and of spirits that plagued or comforted the Indians is lost to us. ”

“ The aboriginal inhabitants are still numerous in the mountain districts, and along some parts of the eastern shores, but they, are said to be much oppressed by the Chinese colonists, and also by the authorities. ”

“ The aboriginal nation, whose statistics and history, past and present, are brought into discussion in the following report, stand out prominently in the foreground of our own history. They have sustained themselves, for more than three centuries and a half, against the intruding and progressive races of Europe. ”

“ It is time for us now to turn to the aboriginal tribes, to inquire what had been and were their territorial rights before and while they were being ground in the mill by rival European nationalities, all intruders. ”

“ We can turn them, like the reflector of a microscope, on the secret and hidden mysteries of the aboriginal man, and discover his inmost motives, his impulses, his concealed hopes and fears, those that gave rise to his customs and laws, his schemes of social life, his superstitions and his religions. ”

“ They hold before you the lamp of science so clearly, that you cannot mistake your way. While you essay, with modesty and diligence to tread in this path, and render justice to a proud and noble branch of the aboriginal race, your ultimate ends are moral improvement, the accumulation of useful facts, and the general advancement of historical letters.
You have selected, out of a wide field of aboriginal nations, the history and ethnography of the Iroquois, as the theme of your particular inquiries. To us, at least, these Tribes, stand in the most interesting relations. ”

“ Pioneer incidents are told with the warmth that comes of long saturated experience. The Indian scenes are more somber, as befits the race, but related in mellow tones that make the almost forgotten aboriginal live. They embody rare facts of value to the historian and ethnologist. Over all broods the background of river and fir. ”

“ In the one case, the petty tribes among which the land was originally divided consented to mix, and dissolve, and be digested as it were together, in order to revive again for a more glorious career; while in the other, the aboriginal societies have adhered stiffly to their distinctive characters, and failing to submit to the regenerating process, cling together in indigested portions, rather than assimilate into one great whole. ”

“ Allowing, too, for the fact already recognized, that our abounding literature on the general subject is composed of contributions from a large variety of writers, in capacity and in principles, who in their intercourse with the natives, having had widely different relations with them, and widely different ends in view, have seen and reported them differently, we have all the means for a full and fair representation of aboriginal life. ”

“ There is a half-caste man and a half-caste woman married, and they have one child. There are three half-caste women on the station who have had children to white men, but they were not married. The children of the latter have the complexion of Europeans, and have but little of the Aboriginal caste in the face. Only those who are well acquainted with the peculiar features of the Aborigines would suspect that these children had Aboriginal blood in their veins. ”

“ While our experience shows that the art could have been extended farther to the extremes of the continent, it is doubtful if the aboriginal type could have been greatly extended without fundamental changes. In other words, the more primitive hunting tribes of the north and south borrowed the trait one after the other, so far as their habitat permitted. ”

“ When we look an aboriginal in the face, the first impression it gives us is that of wildness and fierceness amounting often to repulsiveness. There are, of course, appreciable differences between different individuals, and often during a day’s journey one encounters features which might be classed as decidedly pleasing and almost European. We might even go so far as to say that in some faces, especially those of the old women, we might feel inclined to establish an analogy with classical or historical types of our own colour. ”

“ Within a generation diligent search has begun among some of the Indian tribes, to ascertain, through a sympathetic study of rites, ceremonies, and customs, what were the red man's ideals, what his beliefs, and what his actual attainments. Already this labour is bearing fruit. Scholars are recognising that the aboriginal conditions on this continent throw light on the slow development of human society and its institutions ”

“ If we can class Nature-worship, Ancestor-worship, and Sex-worship as the beginnings of all religious teachings, then the Australian aboriginal has certainly inherited by instinct and tradition a very solid foundation from which we might trace the origin of many, if not most, of our most sacred beliefs in Christianity. ”

“ The few aboriginals that we saw were repulsive in the extreme, and our sense of smell rendered it desirable to keep at a distance from them. Strange that they should say and do the same to all white men. These aboriginals are not allowed to live in the town, but are turned out at sundown, when they swim two miles across to the opposite shore to the aboriginal settlement. We were glad when, after two hours' "tacking" against a contrary wind, we reached the steamer again, feeling we had had a fruitless and vexatious afternoon's expedition. ”

“ But the primitive man, who realizes that his very existence is dependent upon these factors, has learned to respect, preserve, and worship them as legacies he imagines to have been left him by some of his illustrious forbears who, he supposes, have gone to an unknown realm where they live in peace and can only return temporarily to their former haunts in the invisible form or through the medium of some other object which is related to the individual in some mysterious way.
The aboriginal looks upon fire as one of the great indispensible quantities of his social existence ”

“ Let us begin with Australia, where the aboriginal population is in a more primitive condition than any other race whose institutions have been investigated. In certain tribes the family has hardly begun to be distinguished from kin in general. The group is divided into male and female classes, in addition to the division into clans. ”

“ The principal object aimed at, under the general idea of the history and geography of the Aboriginal Race, is to furnish a general and standard reference-book, or short encyclopædia of topics relative to the entire race, alphabetically arranged. By the insertion of the name of each family of tribes, nation, sub-tribe, or important clan, the occasion will be presented of noticing the leading or characteristic events, in their history, numbers, government, religion, languages, arts or distinctive character. ”

“ They talk of having it levelled, as it projects a little into Market street, but I think it a pity to destroy any of the very few vestiges of aboriginal population, which this country presents to the curious and inquisitive traveller. ”

“ When aborigines are taken from their wild outdoor life, and kept under European conditions, more or less confined, their skin becomes unquestionably lighter; this is particularly noticed in their faces. ”

“ It is always interesting to roam with an aboriginal, and especially a mountain people, through their thinly inhabited valleys, over their grand mountains, and to dwell alone with them in their gloomy and forbidding forests, and no thinking man can do so without learning much, however slender be the means at his command for communion. ”

“ Our knowledge of the plan of life in these houses in the aboriginal period is still very imperfect. They still practice the old hospitality, own their lands in common, but with allotments to individuals and to families, and are governed by a cacique or sachem and certain other officers annually elected. ”

“ The most hopeful direction in which this inquiry admits of being pursued is among the Hill tribes of India, Australian blacks, and other diverse and so-called aboriginal races. The field of ethnology is large, and it would be unwise as yet to neglect the chance of somewhere finding characteristic patterns. ”

“ Such are the six principal tribes who form the nucleus, or, to use a military phrase, the right wing of the expatriated aboriginal population, as the bands are arranged in their order from south to north, in the trans-Ozark or Indian territory. ”