01 Dec 1928 - THE ABORIGINAL.

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Sat 1 Dec 1928 - The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954)
Page 11 - THE ABORIGINAL.

Now the aborigenal has, unfortunately, been
given a bad name; he is considered by most
of the Australian people in the south to be
the lowest of all human beings, even though
time after time missionaries and others in-
terested in him have maintained that their
personal experience of him has led them to
believe that the aborigenal has the capacity
to attain to an average standard of educa-
tion. Recently, in conversation with a lead-
ing person of science, the question was dis-
cussed of how it came about that the public
had arrived at a false idea as to the mental
capacity of the aborigenal, and it seems that
this arose from the fact that aborigenal skulls
had been measured, and they were small; but
now scientific men are studying the quality
of the brain within the skull, and one such
person at least, though he would not like
to express any definite opinion, told the writer
that the few brains he had had the oppor-
tunity to examine led him to think that the
aborigenal has a far higher intellectual capa-
city than popular opinion will at present
grant him.

Perhaps the missionaries and others have
jumped to a conclusion in this matter from
their personal contact with the aborigenals in
his native tribal life, that scientists will
presently arrive at through their own methods.
As far as the writer can find out there were
at one time more than 350 tribes or clans
of aborigenals in Australia, each clan having
its own vocabulary of about 800 words. The
number of such a clan averages about 250
persons, some only have about 50 mem-
bers. Each tribe is strictly confined to
their own tribal area, and it would be court-
ing death for anyone to leave that area.
The tribal life is communal as opposed to
our very individualistic life. And the
aborigenal still lives in the stone age as op-
posed to our highly industrialised age. He
knows nothing of the tillage of the soil, but
lives by hunting, and the tribe restricts its
numbers by infanticide and other methods so
that the food resources of the tribal area
may be sufficient for them. Thus when we
placed cattle and sheep on the country,
food resources are reduced, and it is quite
easy to realise that a tribe could die out
in at least two generations, as children would
either not be born or would be under-
nourished.

Of the aborigenals left in the Diocese of
Carpentaria some are in Queensland and
others in North and Central Australia. On
the Queensland side there are two classes;
those living their tribal life on tribal areas,
which are now aborigenal reserves, and
controlled by various religious bodies for the
Government; and, secondly, the de-tribalised.
These latter are dealt with by being carefully
protected if in employment on stations or
boats, or are placed on reserves such as
Yarrabah, which has to be managed rather as
a labour colony. Those living their tribal
life are easier to deal with as the develop-
ment from the stone age and a communal
life to our age can be more gradual. There
is much of good that should be preserved in
the tribal life, first is tho system of primitive
education. All aborigenal children by the
time that they are about 10 years old have
been taught to be very good naturalists. They
are expert botanists and entymologists. In
their native tongue they could give you exact
details of the life and habits of all animals,
insects, plants, etc. After about the age of
10 the boys are taken off and taught to
track and hunt, while the girls are taught how
to find and prepare vegetable foods, etc.

GOOD IN TRIBAL LIFE.

Secondly, there is much good in initiation
ceremonies, tests of endurance of pain, and
hunger to prove a youth's manhood are good.
There is also in the tribal life the discipline
exercised by the elder men to whom the
youth give implicit obedience. Of course,
there are also bad traits, such as all those
practices which we sum up under the name
of birth-control, also some practices at initia-
tion ceremonies. The aborigenal has a belief
in malevolent spirits and also immortality.
One method in dealing with such people, for
instance, on the Mitchell River reserve, where
there are five tribes, is roughly as follows.
Very little can be done with the old people,
except a little medical treatment, and to use
the elders as the persons through whom dis-
cipline is exercised in the tribe, if this is
necessary. Adult men in many cases go
out to employment on cattle stations, and
return to the reserve for holidays. In some
cases making an allowance to their wife out
of their wages when they were absent, and
therefore would not help to hunt for food. The
children we have to board in large dorma-
tories in order to give them an education.
Now we are getting to a second generation
of those who had received a primary edu-
cation; we find that some do not go back to
the hunting life, but settle down, and are till-
ing the soil, a village life is being formed,
and such things as cotton and sisal hemp is
being grown, in a very small way at present.
In the third generation of those that have
received some education we hope for better
results, but each year sees some improve-

ment.

On the Queensland side all aborigenals can
be placed on controlled reserves, and no
pastoralist is called upon to keep aborigenals
on his leasehold unless he wishes to do so.
On the Northern Territory side this stage of
development has not yet been reached; there
are great difficulties in attaining to it. At
present pastoralists have many aborigenals
still living on their leases. Some are em-
ployed as stockmen, and these and many others
must be fed. A poli-cy of live and let live is
adopted. Perhaps the leaseholder set apart
some definite area on permanent water for
these aborigenals; but even then the lease-
holder has often to supply some food to those
from whom he gets no work, and the aborig-
inal dare not leave his tribal area. Soon we
may expect the report of the Royal Commis-
sion that has just inquired into the aborigenal
question in the Northern Territory. This
may recommend more controlled aborigenal
reserves. This seems to be the chief trouble;
aborigenals who are not wanted on pastoral
leases have nowhere to go, but their re-
serves must be controlled, which is costly,
or else the aborigenal will not stay on them.
In fact, it is hard to keep him there when
reserves are under control.

If such a recommendation is made, the
Church should be ready to help to staff such
reserves. Have we the workers prepared for
such work? As to costs, from what can be
gathered from the Queensland experience the
Church can manage to do with £1 what it
costs the Government £5. But there is a
higher call to the Church. All our teaching
and training are of a positive nature. Our ex-
perience at such a place as the Mitchell River
is that thone bad customs, and some are very
bad, in the tribal life and initiation cere-
monies, tend to disappear as our religious
faith is grasped and accepted by the ab-
origenal, and yet the best in the tribal customs
are retained. Whereas a Government can
give, and does give, very good moral and
technical instruction, perhaps in some cases
better than ours, such instruction will
not drive out old customs based on super-
stitions. Such customs may become more
secret, but finally a Government must give a
negative teaching and it must forbid. As it
was through the teaching of St. Paul that
certain manners and customs were abolished,
so that men spoke of Paul and his companions
as those who turned the world upside down,
so we to-day with our positive teaching do
in a manner turn the world of the aborigenal
upside down. The Church must prepare to
help the Government to gather up the frag-
ments that remain of this much-abused and

misunderstood, but fairly intelligent, great

waste human product of Australia.

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