An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 2: An Account Of The English Colony In New South Wales, From Its First Settlement In 1788, To August 1801: With Remarks On The Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. Of The Native Inhabitants Of That Country. To Which Are Added, Some Particulars Of New Zealand; Compiled, By Permission, From The Mss. Of Lieutenant-Governor King; And An Account Of The Voyage Performed By Captain Flinders And Mr. Bass.Collins, David
History
An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 2: An Account Of The English Colony In New South Wales, From Its First Settlement In 1788, To August 1801: With Remarks On The Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. Of The Native Inhabitants Of That Country. To Which Are Added, Some Particulars Of New Zealand; Compiled, By Permission, From The Mss. Of Lieutenant-Governor King; And An Account Of The Voyage Performed By Captain Flinders And Mr. Bass.
Collins, David
New South Wales -- Description and travel
It is almost unnecessary to say that these people go naked. They,
however, wore belts round the waist, and fillets about the head and upper
parts of the arm. These were formed of hair, twisted into yarn-like
threads, and then into bandages, mostly reticulated. Indeed the
inhabitants of this bay appeared to possess in general a very pointed
difference from, if not a superiority over, those of New South Wales,
particularly in their net-works. A seine eighty feet in length, and the
scoop nets which they use, have been mentioned. To these may be added the
bag in which they seemed to carry their portable property, and which was
most probably of the same kind as those mentioned by Captain Cook; but
they were seen of different sizes, and two that Mr. Flinders procured
were very differently worked. They were in general shaped somewhat like a
breast plate; and, being suspended from the necks of the possessors, led
him, previous to his first interview with them, to suppose they were some
kind of defence for the more vital parts. There was no doubt but that
they were provided with nets for catching very large fish, or animals, as
the fragments of a rotten one lying on the shore were picked up, the
meshes of which were wide enough to admit the escape of a moderate sized
porpoise; and the line of which it was made was from three quarters to an
inch in circumference. Probably the large animals which Mr. Flinders took
to be sea lions might be the objects for which these large nets were
fabricated.
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