The aborigines of Tasmania / by H. Ling Roth ; assisted by Marion E. Butler and Jas. Backhouse Walker ; with a chapter on the osteology by J.G. Garson.

  • Henry Ling Roth
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The aborigines of Tasmania / by H. Ling Roth ; assisted by Marion E. Butler and Jas. Backhouse Walker ; with a chapter on the osteology by J.G. Garson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    yard long, and covered with skin, on which they rested one of their elbows” (La Billardiere, II. ch. x. p. 47).* In the Journal of the first Chaplain at the Derwent, Rev. R. Knopwood, under date 21st June, 1804, there is an account of the visit of Mr. William Collins to the Huon river. “ He was conduced to the town (sff) by some of them (i.e. the blacks), where there were about twenty families ; he stayed all night with them.” There is no description of their habitations. Curious Structures.—“ A curious account of one of their places of meeting is preserved in an official letter, written by Mr. W. 15. Walker, dated December 24, 1827, from which the following is taken ‘ Some time since. Mr. W. Field had occasion to search for a fresh run for some of his cattle, in the course of which he found a fine tract of land, to the west of George Town, in which is an extensive plain, and on one side of it his stock-keepers found a kind of spire, curiously ornamented with shells, grass-work, etc. The tree of which it is formed appeared to have had much labour and ingenuity bestowed upon it, being by means of fire brought to a sharp point at the top and pierced with holes, in which pieces of wood are placed in such a manner as to afford an easy ascent to near the top, where there is a commodious seat for a man. At the distance of fifteen or twenty yards round the tree are two circular ranges of good huts, composed of bark and grass; described as much in the form of an old-fashioned coal-scuttle turned wrong side up, the entrance about eighteen inches high, five feet or six feet at the back, and eight feet or ten feet long. There are also numerous small places in the form of birds’-nests, formed of grass, having constantly fourteen stones in each. The circular space between the spire and the huts has the appearance of being much frequented, being trod quite bare of grass, and seems to be used as a place of assembly and consultation. In the huts and the vicinity were found an immense number of waddies, but very few spears. . . . There are two others, but of inferior construction, one about five miles from the Supply Mills, and the other west of Piper's Lagoon, north of the Western River. He [my informant] has frequently met small parties of natives on their way to and from the two last-named places. ’ ” (Calder, J.A.I. pp. 23-24). This wras on the banks of the Tamar, and not the west coast, and the period some twenty-five years after the aborigines had been in European contaCt. The evidence for huts as distinguished from break-winds having been built by blacks in their wild state, rests upon the unreliable testimony of Jorgenson, and this only for the west coast. Bonwick’s statement (p. 50), “ When so harassed by Europeans, they left off building huts and were satisfied with break- winds,” would imply that huts were originally built, which, however, is as mentioned very doubtful. La Billardiere describes a curious struc- ture of another sort (ch. v. pp. 178-179): “We found on the skirts of the forest a fence constructed by the natives against the winds of the * His words are:— et quelques autres avoient un petit oreiller qu’ils nomment mere, long d’environ deux decimetres, et couvert de peau sur lequel ils appuyoient un des coudes (II. p 43); but 1’rof. Ratzel (Vblkerkunde, Leipzig, 1894, 2r*d Ed., I. p. 351) translates oreiller into kopfschemcl, i.e. headstool which is manifestly not corred. It is not at all improbable that this oreiller is the kangaroo rug rolled up for using as a drum as described by Lloyd (ch. iv. p. 50).
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