The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1889-09-27
NATIVE AUSTRALIANS
Information Obtained From the Ias
Survivor OF Mighty Clan.

Information Obtained From the Las
Survivor of a Mighty Clan
In the magnificent city Of Mel
bourne, Australia, there lives a
prince named Berak, who is the
last surviving son Of the Australian
chieftain Yarra-Yarra, who once
possessed the land upon which Mel
bourne and its environs stand.
Berak does not now live in pr1ncely
style. His badIy-worn clothes are the
gifts Of benevolent persons, and he
lodges and subsists upon charity. He
can hardly be called beggar, for he
never asks for any thing; but If a
bit of silver Is slipped into his hand
to buy tobacco with, he accepts it
with thanks.
For all his poverty, Berak is said
to be q fne-looking man. He is
about siZty-fve years old, quite black,
little under medium height. white
bearded and straight-haired. He has
fine forehead, q Grecian nose; large,
mLd and expressive eyes, and thin
lips. When he smiles, as he often
does, he shows all his thlrty-two
teeth, still perfectly whole, white and
shapely.
Berak, who takes his own reduced
circumstances and the decline OF his
race cutie phuOsophically, is fond OF
telling the story of his people, the
Australian natives,
Before the arrival of the English.
these people had neither cattle. horses,
sheep nor hens. They did not culti-
vate the ground and lived wholly by
hunting and fishing. Their chief
game was the kangarCe, the small
Australian bear, paroquets Of various
kinds, a sort of Wild duck or " widgeou
and the black swan-for in Australia
the blackLirds are white and the swans
black. The natives hshed neither
with the hook nor with the net, but
lanced both fish and eeLs.
Berak acknowledges freely shat his
ancestors were cannibGls; he even re-
nembers taxing part in a cannibal
feast in his own childhood Put his
people, hesays, never ate any of the
Engl.shmeu. 1t Is the Engiishmen-
who nave eaten the Beraki''
The native Australians were cruel
in their punishments. Great Grim
inals were beaten to death with clubs
~ NAAS LJfC~-LtG u tA4e lI4Dth- ~
the same time, they we're not without
KIND feelings. When, upon the march,
;fn old and feeble man had fallen out
Of the line, it was their custom TO send
rack two or three stalwart warriors
% guard and assist him
Such OF the native Australians as
still survive in savage state possess
many peculiar customs. Strangers
meeting must remain some time silent,
and II they become good friends, they
signify it by exchanging names. The
name, they think, IS a part Of the man
himself, and to possess 1t gives a
power for evil, so that it should be
known only to friends
Although the Australians are not. as
a rule, polygamists, they hold their
women should be kept in subjection,
and cut OF the last joint of the little
finger OF females as sign of their
subordination. The men undergo a still
more remarkable mutilation as sign
of subiection to their chiefs; they have
their teeth knocked out by their
"koradger men,, or priests. Berak,
being a chief by birth, escaped this
ceremony.
Hagarth, a traveller who has de-
scribed the ways Of the Auetralians,
writes of a scmi-domesticatgd native
that said TO him one day, with n look
of Importance. that he must 60 away
for few days, as he had grown up to
mans estate, and 1T was high time
that he should have his teeth knocked
OUT
The Australians have long been re-
garded as one of the most degraded of
races. but they possessed. as least
when first visited by tho Europeans.
many excellent ana friendly clllities.
They have diminished until they now
number only about soEenty-fve thou
sand, and no doubt viii, before many
generations, completely disappear, as
the natives of Tasmania have already
done.-Youth's Companion.