The St. Johns herald., 1891-03-19
NATIVE AUSTRALIANS.
Information Obtained From tho Last
 Survivor or d Mighty Clan.

Information Obtained From tho Last
 Survivor OF d Mighty Clan.
 In the magnificent city of Mel bourne, Australia. there lives 9 ''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 it's environs stand. Bcrak does not now live in prlnce'y style. Ills ladly-worn clothes Q e the gifts of benevolent persons, and he lodges and subsi5ts upon charity. He can hardly be called 8 began, for he never asks for any thing; but if 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 fne-loolzing man. He is about sixty-fve years old, quite black, little under medium height, white bearded and straight-haired. He has a fine forehead, Q Grecian nose; large, mid and expressive eyes, and thin lips. When he smiles, as he often does, he shows all his thlrty-two teeth, still perfectly whole,swhito and shapaly.
 Berak, who takes his own reduced circumstances and the decline of his race quite philosophically, is fond Of telling the story Of his people, tae 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 kangaroo, tho small Australian bear, paroquets of various kinds, @ sort of wild duck or widgeOn and the black swap-for in Australia the blackbi"ds are white and the swans black. The natives fshed neither with the hook nor with the not, but lanced both fish and eels.
 Berak acknowledges freely that his ancestors were cannibals; he even re- members taking part il Q cannibal feast in his own childhood. But his people, he says, never ate any Cf the Englishmen. 1t is the Engiishmen who have eaten the Beral1!''
 The native Australians were cruel in their punishments. Great crin- inals were beaten to death with clubs in tho presence of the tribes. At the same time, they were not without kind feelings. When, upon the march, an old and feeble man had fallen out of the line, it was their custom to send back two or three stalwart warriors to guard and assist him.
 Such ofthe native Australians as still survive in Q savage state possess many peculiar customs. Strangers meeting must remain some time silent, and if they become good friends, they signify it by exchanging names. The name, they think, is g. part of the man himself, and to possess it gives a power for evil, so that it should be known only to friends.
 Although the Australians are not, as 8 rule, polyganists, they hold their women should be kept in subjection, and cut of the last joint of tho little finger Of females a5 9 sign Of their subordination. The men undergo astilI moro remarkable mutilation as @ sign of subjection to their chiefs; they have their teeth knocked out by their fkoradger men, CT priests. Berak, being chief by birth, escaped this ceremony.
 Hagarth, a traveller who has de- scr.bed the ways of the Australians, writes Of a scmi-domesticated native that said to him one day, with Q look Of importance, that he must go away for few days, as he had grown up to mans estate, and it was high timo that he should have his teeth knocked out
 The Australians have long been re- garded as ono of the most degraded of races, but they possessed, at least when first visited by tue Europeans, many excellent and friendly qualities. They have diminished until they now number only about seventy-five thou sand, and no doubt will, before many generations, completely disappear, a5 the natives of Tasmania have already done.-Youth's Companion.
 
 Origin of the Nanc "iowa."