The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1897-09-01
AUSTRALIAN ABORlCINE.
An UntamabIe Savage with the Stone
Age Habits.

An UntamabIe Savage with the Stone
Age Habits.
The Central Australian aborigine is
the living representative of stone
age, who still fashions his spear heads
and knives from flint or sandstone,
and performs the most daring surgical
operations with them. His origin and
his history, says writer in the Ad-
vance Australian, are lost in the
gloomy mists of the past. He has no
written records and few oral traditions.
In appearance he is naked hirsute
savage, with type of features occa-
sionally pronouncedly Jewish. He is
by nature light-hearted, merry and
prone to laughter splendid mimic,
supple-jointed, with an unerring hand
that works in perfect unison with his
eye, which is keen as that of an eagle.
He has never been known to wash.
He has no private ownership of land,
except az regards that which is not
over-carefully concealed about his own
person. I'm this respect there are un-
doubtedly some territorial magnates.
He cultivates nothing, but lives en-
tirely on the spoils of the chase, and
although the thermometer frequently
ranges from Is degrees to over 80 de-
grees Fahrenheit in twenty-four hours,
and his country is teeming with furred
game, he makes no use of the skins
for clothing, but goes about during the
day and sleeps in the open at night
perfectly nude.
He builds no permanent habitation,
and usually camps where night or ia
tigue overtakes him. He can travel
from point to point for hundreds of
miles through the pathless bush with
animal over rocks and stones, where
European eye would be unable to
distinguish mark. He is a keen OBJ
server, and knows the habits and
changes of form of every variety Of
animal or vegetable life in his country.
Religious belief he has none, but is
excessively superstitious living in con-
stant dread of an evil spirit, which is
supposed to lurk around his camp at
night. He has no gratitude except
that of the anticipatory order, and is
rs treacherous as Judas. He has no
traditions, and yet continues to prac-
tice with scrupulous exactness num-
ber of hideous customs and ceremo-
MES which have been handed down
from his fathers, and of the origin or
reason of which he knows nothing.
Ofttimes kind and even atfectionate to
those of his children who have been
permitted to live, he still practices,
without any reason except that his
father did so before him, the most
cruel and revolving mutilations upon
the young men and maidens of his
tribe.
Nevertheless, he is philosopher
who accepts feast or famine without q
murmur either at the pangs of hunger
or the discomforts of repletion. His
motto is Carpe diem, and when fortune
sends him supply of game he con-
sumes it all, regardless of tomorrow.
He is not cannibal. No cold joint
of missionary graces his sideboard,
and should hunger, as a penalty for
his improvident gluttony, overtake
him, he simply ties thin hair girdle
round his stomach, and almost per-
suades himself that he is still suffer-
lug from repletion. After an expert
ence of many years, L say without
hesitation that he is absolutely un-
tamable. You may clothe and care for
him for years, when suddenly the de-
mon Of unrest takes possession he
throws off his clothing and plunges
into the trackless depths of his native
bush, at once reverting to his old and
hideous customs, and when stated, after
months of privation, he will return
again to clothing and civilization, only
to repeat the performance later on.
Verify, his moods are as eccentric a.
the fight of his own boomerang.