Aboriginal person

“ There is in the nature of the aboriginal races a religious fervour which apparently forms an integral part of their character. They are also submissive and inoffensive, and it can be understood how any invading and warlike tribe would, without difficulty, conquer and control people having this mild disposition. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Another striking trait of the race is found in their legends and tales. Those of the aboriginal race who excel in private conversation, become to their tribes oral chroniclers, and are relied on for historical traditions as well as tales. It is necessary, in listening to them, to distinguish between the gossip and the historian, the narrator of real events, and of nursery tales. For they gather together everything from the fabulous feats of Manebozho and Misshozha, to the hair-breadth escapes of a Pontiac, or a Black Hawk. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By this firm administration of equal justice the Aboriginal population, instead of being, as formerly, a hostile, treacherous, and troublesome race, had become harmless, docile, and in some degree useful to the settlers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When his affairs are working harmoniously, game secured, and water available, the aboriginal makes his life as easy as possible; and he might to the outsider even appear lazy. Blessed with a fair share of pristine philosophy by heredity, his motto might be interpreted in words to the effect that while there is plenty for to-day never care about to-morrow. ”

“ If ye have any feelings of compunction, before the die be cast, let the Aboriginal inhabitants of Australia live. Ye have taken from them all they had on earth. Be content with this, and do not add to the crime of plundering them that of taking their lives. Let them live that they may be put in possession of a title to a better country—a country where the invading foe dare not enter. ”

“ Our relations with the numerous tribes of aboriginal natives of this country, scattered over its extensive surface and so dependent even for their existence upon our power, have been during the present year highly interesting. ”

“ If the mother-in-law is near other members of her tribe at such a time, they endeavour to conceal her, but they are not at liberty to say that her son-in-law is approaching, nor may they mention his name. Even at the Aboriginal Stations, where the Aboriginals are, one may say, civilized, and to some extent weaned from their prejudices, and where nearly all their ancient customs are in disuse or forgotten, this one lingers; and a woman will for some reason always avoid the sight of a certain man of the tribe. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In reply to a question concerned with the location of a thing, he does not point, as a European would, but turns his face in the direction he wants to indicate and thrusts out his lips. When beckoning with his hand, an aboriginal does not move his hand upwards towards his face as we do, but passes it downwards with a scooping action. ”

“ It is painful to turn from reviewing the progress of the European population and their descendants established in this portion of America, to contemplate the condition and prospects of the aboriginal tribes. It cannot, I fear, be affirmed with truth, that the difficult problem of reconciling the interests of an inferior and native race with those of an intrusive and superior one, has as yet been satisfactorily solved on this continent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In presenting the motion from Queensland for discussion, I feel that it will be generally agreed that the care of the aboriginal races should be considered from a nation-wide, rather than from the individual State point of view. ”

“ It is not so much the ultimate destruction of the aboriginal race, as it now exists, that my uncle seems to have hoped might be prevented, nor did he apparently deplore that such a thing should take place eventually. ”

“ There can be no doubt that this desperate forecasting of the destiny of our aboriginal tribes has, latently or in avowal, swayed the minds of a vast number in each generation here, and has by no means been confined to those violent, merciless fighters and desperadoes who have done their utmost to carry out the presumed decree of fate. ”

“ Although they are a different type of people from, and superior to the mainland aboriginal, being Polynesian in strain, and naturally village dwellers and horticulturists as well as fishermen, the Torres Strait tribes, whose islands have been closely reserved, afford an example of the degree to which natives can be developed to self-dependence. ”

“ 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 ”

“ During our long experience amongst the aboriginal tribes, only one instance has come under our notice of a murderer endeavouring to evade the penalty of his crime by flight; and his endeavour, most wonderful to relate, was in every way successful, for he contrived to ingratiate himself into the favorable notice of a tribe at enmity with his own, by whom he was much thought of and admired. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The Australian aboriginal is indeed a puzzle: he lives like a beast of the field, using neither clothes nor house, and to the casual observer is a savage of the lowest type, without brains, or any senses other than those possessed by animals ”

“ No aboriginal nation or people has ever yet been discovered, to my knowledge, which has not professed to have a mysterious ancestry of a mythical character. It is interesting to mark the analogies and the differences between their various systems. Although among some tribes who have lived much in communication with the whites, their cosmogony has been confounded very much with the Mosaic or Scripture account, so that it is now often difficult to distinguish clearly the aboriginal from the imported, yet all the Americo-Indian tribes have more or less preserved their traditions on this subject. ”

“ Here, in the case of this young Aboriginal, an opportunity seemed to be presented to the Board of proving to the world that the Aborigines of Australia are degraded rather by their habits than in consequence of the want of mental capacity, and though the boy showed only an average ability, it was thought that, by careful education and instruction, he would probably become a good citizen, and of the highest usefulness as an agent in dealing with the Aboriginal race. ”