The Confessions of a BeachcomberBanfield, E. J. (Edmund James)
History
The Confessions of a Beachcomber
Banfield, E. J. (Edmund James)
Dunk Island (Qld.); Natural history -- Australia -- Queensland
None of those who remain is equal to the last of the royal line in
stature. Toby stands 5 feet 7 1/2 inches. Tom, 5 feet 7 inches. Brow,
5 feet 2 3/4 inches, and Willie, 5 feet 2 inches. Tom's expanded chest
measures 36 1/2 inches, and Toby's, 36; Brow's, 34 1/2, Willie's,
34 inches.
CHAPTER III
ATTRIBUTES AND ANECDOTES
Blacks possess acquirements which white people cannot successfully
imitate, are industrious in fashioning weapons and in the invention and
practice of primitive forms of amusement, and are in many respects
entertaining subjects to those who apply themselves, though
superficially, to the study of their habits and customs. On the impulse
of the moment they are generous or cruel, erratic, purposeless, unstable
as water.
The cat's cradle of childhood's days, in the hands of a black who has
practised the pastime, becomes most elaborate. He makes complicated
designs never dreamt of by the whites--fish, palm-trees, turtles, snakes,
birds flying, men and women, etc. etc., the variety being endless. Toy
darts and toy boomerangs are common, and the system of signalling by
gesture comprehensive and excellent. The Queensland Government has taken
means for the preservation of knowledge of many of the sports and
pastimes, as well as the language and habits of the blacks, being
impressed with the urgency of so doing by the rapid decrease in their
numbers. Many have been hastened from the world by a new and seductive
vice. Chinese cultivators of bananas found the blacks useful, and
rewarded them with the ashes from their opium-pipes. Mixed with water the
dregs form a warm and comforting beverage, but its effects were
terrible. The fiery liquors of mean whites, and diseases contracted from
the depraved, killed off many of the original lords of the soil. Opium
was supplying the finishing touches when the Australian Federal
Government, by an act of conscious virtue, forbade its introduction to
the Commonwealth, save for use as a drug. Indirectly the blacks have
been saved from demoralisation which threatened to become
precipitate--that is to say, in those localities where the smuggling of
opium has been suppressed.
The dwindling away of the race is, however, inevitable. A few anecdotes
may perhaps throw unaccustomed light upon attributes not generally
understood, and show that the Australian aboriginal, uncouth savage as
he is, is not altogether devoid of smartness and good-humour.
COMMON AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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