An historical document written in 1890 gives us a glimpse into the habits and manners of Australia’s original owners.
Image by Paul Mannix
I had the chance to visit my hometown in Queensland Australia a few weeks back to catch up with my parents. The town where I grew up is now almost totally suburbanized – most of the trees are gone and replaced with retirement villages.
When I was a child we lived on a farm. My father is now 92 and knew some if the last remaining original inhabitants of the area. The original inhabitants were long gone even when I was born mostly having been massacred, shipped off to orphanages, adopted (my friend Dennis), or killed off by western diseases (including alcohol abuse). Occasionally you find reminders of the past (if your observant), stone axes and stone flints. My father shared with me the places where the aboriginals were massacred. I physically felt sadness as a child when I visited those places even before my father told me that massacres occurred there.
“The people may be forgotten but their blood in the ground still speaks.”
I came across an old historical document written in 1890 that reminisced on the habits and manners of the indigenous peoples of Queensland. It is fascinating given that it was written so long ago and also given that the author had respect for a race of people that the rest of his countrymen were busy exterminating at that time.
Over the next few days I will publish extracts from the document I found.
WARNING: Some Indigenous people make find the language offensive, please bear in mind it an extract from an historical document, written in a time of slavery and genocide for indigenous people.
Reminiscences Of The Habits and Manners Of The Aboriginals Of Queensland
“..information regarding Queensland aboriginal life and custom..”, Dalkeith Advertiser Nov. 4 1886
“Mr. Johnstone introduced his subject by saying – The more you see of the Aboriginals of Australia, the more you wonder. I shall first speak of their religion in my own country, Victoria, and then compare it with the religion of the Aboriginals of Northern Queensland. The blacks of the lower Murray say that when the world was first formed there was no living soul in it. By and bye a great eagle hawk came carrying two human beings and landed them on the lower Murray. From those two human beings sprang the whole race of Aboriginals. This is somewhat similar to our own idea of the human race being spread over the world in the way taught in the Bible. They have also a similar idea of the deluge. they say that the waters rose over the whole of the world (that is Australia), and that four people escaped from drowning by climbing tress on the highest mountains, and from them the world was again peopled. Then they believe that the inhabitants of the world became so wicked that the destroying spirit came down and destroyed all the wicked ones, and some of the good ones also, and that the small stars are the wicked and the large stars the good people. They have also some idea of a future state. In Queensland there are about 500 different dialects spoken, yet the same idea predominates. There are tribes in the interior who still practice circumcision. My time is so limited, and there is so much that could be said about the manner of life of the blacks, their mode of preparing their food, their customs and laws, that I must give you mulrum in parvo.
Some of their articles of food are deadly poison, which require a careful chemical preparation before they can be eaten.
As to their knowledge of science I need only refer to the Boomerang. This is a weapon which the natives use for killing birds, etc.; they can throw this weapon for a distance of about 50 yards, and after reaching the distance required it returns back to where it came from; this is owing to the shape, which is part of a circle and is about 1.5 inches broad, and to the peculiar motion which it describes while flying through the air. It was from it that the idea of the screw propeller for steam ships was taken.
I might speak of their wonderful knowledge of medicine; and, of course, like all wild races, they are great believers in witchcraft. If a black fellow who is of marked notoriety in his tribe, dies from a disease which shows no outward sign, his relatives plant a tree over his grave, and from the direction in which the leaves fall from the tree, their medicine man tells them the direction in which the tribe lives which caused their relative’s death. They then travel in that direction till they meet a tribe on whom they take vengeance. When they start on the war path they never return till they have met an enemy, and I have known them to travel 600 miles before finding one. That is one reason so many of the early pioneers in Queensland were killed. Many among you know that if a blackfellow receives an injury he never forgets it, but takes the first opportunity for revenge that offers itself, whether it be man, woman or child. If the injury was done by a white man, he has his revenge on the first white man he meets.”
From reading this extract it is easy to see why the cultures collided back then. In part 2 Mr Johnstone talks about Dance & War
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About Danny Sheehan
Danny lives in Hong Kong but is originally from Australia. He is Married to Maggie and together they have two children with whom they enjoy sharing and enjoying an exciting life with daily. Danny's passions are freedom, adventure and discovery, mainly in nature and science but also spiritually. He is a great believer in living in the NOW.
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