Origin and Characteristics.— The origin of the aboriginal tribes of Australia has been a theme of much controversy; and the space available here is not adequate for even an enumeration of the many theories — including one comprehending an invasion by representa tives of the Lost Tribes of Israel— advanced by various differing authorities. This seems to be a problem insoluble. In such circum stances sufficient must be the statement that there is a fair consensus of opinion to the ef fect that the native black races, as they were found by the European pioneers, had apparently been substantially affected (especially in the northern areas, which were for many centuries visited periodically by Malay proas in search of pearl shell, trepang and other products) by strains of blood introduced from beyond the island continent. A judicious balance of the evidence adduced by the most trustworthy ethnographers tends to the conclusion that the two points whence Australia benefited or other wise by migration of fauna and flora, as well as ethnologically, were the group culminating in New Guinea on the one hand, and on the other in the chain of islands and peninsulas touching Australia on the northwest. Certain plants and animals came from Asia to Australia, and it is held to be extremely probable that the ancestors of the Australian native tribes (who differ somewhat from those of Tasmania) crossed over to Australia from those two points. The native population is declared to be an admix ture of at least two distinct elements. The skin of the one was a true yellow, and that of the other was a velvety black. The hair varies from straight to woolly, and the face and skull also have material dissimilarities. The nose assumes various grades, from the flat negro to the arched Jewish, and these contrasted types are believed to be due to the immigration of Malays and Papuans as indicated.
One reason why the black had no means of sea navigation was that °the negroid blood in his veins fetters the Australian so firmly to the soiP; and another was that unkindly nature made the pressure of food requirements so heavy that the black was forced to be a wan derer, and had little time for anything else than the sustaining of bare life. As, however, this judgment reflects disparagingly upon the natural resources of the land, it is important to add that on their advent Australia's °Pilgrim Fathers)) surprised the black inhabitants in a state of the most primitive savagery. There was not anywhere the remotest sign of any cul tivation of the soil, or of the slightest attempt at tillage, or the thrift or providence which stores food for emergencies. Neither had the natives made — though they possessed roughly hewn bark or log canoes — any effort to clothe themselves, or—apart from miserable hovels constructed of rank grass or reeds, or boughs or bark of trees — to provide shelter from the cold of winter or the heat of summer. They had no written language, unless one may in clude in that characterization such crudely artistic representations as were inscribed on rocks or in caverns. Some of these, like the message sticks sent from one part of the coun try to another, are ideagraphic —or picture writing—but none was at any rate unmistak ably idealistic. Though most of the tribes paid deference to their °medicine men' or sages mostly the older members of the tribal camps, who were always well treated by the younger blacks — they possessed practically no concep tion of abstractions. In this respect they were, while less provident than the ants, essentially untutored children of nature — almost as much so as the dogs and the lower animals. They were endowed with instinct rather than with in tuition. No bloodhound ever displayed keener sight or scent than the Australian black track ers, whose power in following a trail seems almost miraculous.
On the other hand, a close study of the aborigines reveals curious anomalies. Speaking the natives rise and fall in mental and physical superiority in exact harmony with the fertility or otherwise of the territory over which they roamed. Some of them had scarcely reached the low stage of intelligence associated with the Stone Age, others rapidly acquired education under European teachers, and in the wilds had constructed the boomerang which, with its marvelous power of returning to the thrower, has long puzzled even the most pro found scientific experimenters. Among the
highest-class natives, too, the character of their spears and other weapons indicated the posses sion of no little constructive skill, as well as undoubted patience and perseverance on the part of the makers. Where an aboriginal popu lation is divided into hundreds, and probably thousands, of tribes, all mutually independent and mutually hostile, and distinguished usually by arbitrarily marked rings of exclusiveness, and each tribe speaking a dialect of its own, it is impossible to write with exactitude concern ing their customs. One must not, therefore, at tempt to explain why the tribal boundaries should in some cases be defined by geometrical devices; why in tribal territories here and there circumcision should be practised, and on ad joining areas not observed; why some natives should exchange salutes similar to Masonic signs, and others be unaware of the meaning of this interchange, but be familiar with a some what intricate code of smoke signals; why some should be cannibals and others should not be; why the superstitious ceremonies should vary so widely; and yet why the main idea of the native or dance should be ap parently almost everywhere the same or closely similar.
What seems to be certain is that the wild aborigines have no religion properly so called —no impelling attraction toward or trust in a God of Love, but a wholesome fear of "Mool darbieD or the devil, whom all tribes sedulously seek to propitiate — some even by periodical human sacrifices, and the dread of whom as a spirit walking in the darkness keeps them shrinking in their camps until the break of day. Very extensively diffused also is the belief that nobody can die a natural death, but must be the victim of a maleficent influence or the evil eye. Equally widespread is the aspiration among the aborigines that after death they may °jump up a white fellow'— a notion said, perhaps fancifully, to have originated in the general custom of smoking the corpses of the dead, with the result that the peeling outer cuticle revealed the white dermis or true skin. Some tribes are prudishly modest in their rcla Lions with their women, others are as flagrantly immoral. The language of some seems to be little better than mere gibberish, while concern ing that of others one of the Jesuit mission aries has written that in its construction it is most ingenious, and curious in its form, indi cating high intelligence and suggestive of the Hebrew. Many of the natives are musical, but their musical instruments are of the crudest character, made chiefly of hollowed wood or grasses, or bamboos. At the age of puberty youths of both sexes are formally initiated by peculiar, jealously preserved, and often inde scribable ceremonies, into the respective secrets of manhood and womanhood, but even the old men and women of the tribes who perform these rites — which include the knocking out of some of the young men's teeth and certain genital mutilations — seem to have no clear and coherent idea of their import.
Bibliography.— Basedoe, 'Anthropological Notes on South Australia' (1903) ; Curr, 'The Australian Race: Its Origin, Languages, Cus toms, etc.' (4 vols., Melbourne 1886-87); Daw son, 'Australian Aborigines' (Melbourne 1881) ; Howitt, 'Two Legions of Lake Eyre Tribes' (1903) • Gill, 'Anthropological Notes' (1908) Lumholtz, 'Among Cannibals' (Lon don 1860) ; Matthew, (Eaglehawk and Crow' (London 1889) ; id., 'Notes on the Arranda Tribe' (1907) ; id., 'Aboriginals of Australia' (1906) ; id., 'Aboriginal Tribes' (1905) ; id., 'Ethnological Notes on the Aboriginal Tribes of the Northern Territory' (1901) • id., 'Lan guage of the Native Tribes' (1962) ; Roth, 'Queensland Aborigines' (Brisbane 1897) ; id., 'Fighting Weapons' (1909) ; id., 'Initiation Ceremonies of the Aborigines' (1909); Smith, 'Aborigines of Victoria' (London 1878) ; Spencer and Gillen, 'Native Tribes of Central Australia' (London 1904) • Wallace, 'Austral (1893). See General Bibliography.