Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-04-08
Daily - eagle
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
THE NATIVES VERY LOW IN THE
SCALE OF BARBARlSM.
a Native Girl Digging for Food-Huts
and misunderstanding Contents of a
Kangaroo Skin-Cruelty to Women
Life in the Bush


Life in the Bush.
1t has been reported at different tines that
many of the natives on the northeastern
coast Of Australia are cannibals, but this
charge has never been brought against even
the worst of the west Australian blacks,
They are hideous race, and about as low in
the scale of civilization as it is possible to go.
To see a native girl digging in the ground
for dalgeitS and boobies their names for two
kinds of small burrowing narsupials, ths
flesh Of which they esteem very highly,
crouching on her launches and breaking
away the earth with long stick in one hand,
while with the nails and fingers of the other
hand she throws it behind her, for all the
world like a dog burrowing after rat, is as
disgusting sight as it is possible for man
and brother to behold, unless it be to see
her lord and master lying asleep and, if he
had the opportunity Of getting grog, drunk
In the hut close by, with perhaps two or
three old hays, a couple of half starved kan
CARGO hounds and a mass of skins, opossum
remains and filth, which makes one turn
away with loathing from the scene.
The huts which they build for themselves
are the most temporary and toughest ldnk Of
constructions. A few large branches leaning
together in the shape of a round hut, covered
sometimes with strips Of bark off the paper
bark" tree that affords tough and fibrous
covering, and only large enough for three or
four to lie down in, and pretty close together,
too. Such is their idea OF "home."
The utmost limit of their clothing in the
bush is a kangaroo skin cloak and band of
hair which they tie around their heads to
keep their own swarthy locks out of their
eyes. In the north and where white men ara
scarce they 60 entirely naked, and appear to
be without the sense of shame. Every man
has the right to three or four wives and they
generally have them Of very various ages.
en- old gray haired man often has a wife Of
IL years old among others. 1t is, Of course,
rather a stretch of language to call them
wives, for they have no kind of marriage
ceremony, and are as often secured by alb
duction as by purchase This way of win
ming wife is naturally conducive to con-
slant fighting, which forms q large part of
the interest Of their lives, the more so as,
owing to the low value Set upon women's
lives, that sex (Which it is really impossible
in this connection to speak of as the fair SEX
is scarce.
They eat any kind of food they can lay
their hands upon, meat of any kind, of
course, and no matter how stale, the fat and
entrails quite uncooked and the remainder
scarcely more prepared. Snakes, lizards,
frogs, white ants, grubs of almost any kind
and the bodies of some kinds Of moths they
esteem highly. The women, who always
have to do anything ia the way of carrying
that has to be done, carry their babies
lpickaninies) slung over their backs in a kan
CARGO skin. If a woman has not got baby
TO carry, or sometimes even If she has, she
carries bag made of the same material, the
contents of which constitute their only food
against future want. Il is an awful thing to
see the contents of this bag The writer has
seen two women, who had come up to an
Australian station TO beg for food, given the
remains of a rice pudding in a pudding dish.
The one who carried the bag took it down
off her shoulders and gravely began to I'M
load it-on top, perhaps, two or three crusts
Of bread, green with mold, then a piece of
raw meat half putrefied; an old tobacco pipe;
an opossum's skin; some red clay, little
greasy; black hair; and at last a very dirty
piece of an old flannel shirt was reached.
This, which was about a foot square, was
spread carefully on the ground. The contents
of the pudding dish were scOoped into it with
a most filthy hand. 1t was neatly and graveiy
folded up and put back in the bottom of the
bag, and then the other valuables were re-
placed on top of it.
And yet, though so degraded, they are far
from useless, these creatures. They make
tolerably good shepherds, can be taught to
use their hands skiiifully in any way that is
desired and the good ones among them may
be trusted to do things that many white
man would not do well and conscientiously.
Settlers will send their horses long distances
in charge of "blackfellow," ana sheep, too,
are often intrusted to them to drive to out
lying stations or down into the town to mar
ket.
Even those of them who have been brought
most near to a state of civilization require
every now and then a month in a savage
state in the bush, and after working, perhaps
about the stable yard, III clothes, and appear
ing quite domesticated for months together,
they will suddenly inform their employer,
"Me walkaway morning" which is equiva-
lent to saying that they require holiday.
And next morning they may be seen airily
clad in a single kangaroo skin, their black
hair all stained red and clotted with a horri-
BILE mixture of red clay and grease called
''wilgie, and carrying a small shield a couple
Of spears and Is many boomerangs Tor keieys
as they call them, setting out for month
in the woods with three or four more of their
tribe.
When natives are out in the bush it is nee
essary for them always TO 90 fully armed, for
almost every native of another tribe is their
enemy to the death, and they are broken up
into great number Of tribes. If a native of
one tribe dies member Of another tribe has
to be killed. This is the nearest thing they
have to any religious code, and il is in vain
that white men have tried TO stamp out the
savage custom. Their principal weapon Of
offense is the spear the bow and arrow being
quite unknown among them.
They have no ideas. however rudimentary,
of creator or supreme being, aud the only
consciousness of the supernatural which they
seem to have is fear OF evil spirits; these
they appear to associate with dead people
who have been left unburied. They attribute
all illness TO the Vaccinations OF these bad
spirits.
They are very cruel to their women
c'Gins," as they call them, making them
build the huts and carry firewood, and DO all
the work there is to do, and spearing them
through the leg or cruelty beating them on
the very slightest provocation-
Girl babies they often kill On the day of
the writer's arrival on one station sheep and
cattle ranches are called stations in Aus
hahal, he was shown a little black picsa-
niny, only a week old, as a curiosity, and
most strange looking inhuman little animal
it was The following morning some of the
gins, who came up to the house each morning
to beg for tea, announced quite calmly that
Monkey (the bsby's father was going to kill
pickaniny. The owner OF the station. who