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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    COLOUR. ODOUR. MOTIONS. plus clair in her child chocolat an lait in another person ; then teint du cuir neuf in another child; brim ful gineux in a man and grisdtre on the sole of his foot; brun violace in a man, his lips brunatre rose and others with a skin violace un pen brunatre. Finally, Jeffreys maintains (p. 125), “Both sexes are of a jet black, and not, as some writers have described them, of a brown colour,” but then he was a careless observer. Odour. Davies (p. 410) says : “ The men grease their bodies Unconnedfed with this besmearing, a very peculiar odour proceeds from theii bodies.” Bonwick, writing apparently of his own experience (p. 123) says: “ The odour proceeding from the natives, though not equally offensive with that distinguishing the negroes, was sufficiently disagreeable, though I have heard my friend Mr. Clark, the Flinders Island Catechist, declare he could notice nothing of the sort.” Motions. Climbing Trees. — We have some good accounts of the manner in which the natives used to climb trees, which are given in the chapter on blunting. Method of Carrying Children.—There appear to have been two methods of carrying children common among the Tasmanians. The one described by Widowson (p. 190), who says the children are generally carried (by the women) astride, across the shoulders, in a careless manner; and by Calder (p. 22), “The woman carried her infant, not in her arms, but astride her shoulders, holding its hands.” This carrying astride the shoulders is perhaps illustrated in one of Peron’s plates where the child is seated astraddle on the mother’s right shoulder, his right leg hanging down her chest while his left leg encircles her neck and comes over the left breast. The other as described by West (II. p. 79), who mentions that a woman, with a new-born infant, followed the tribe ; the infant was slung on the back, and suckled over the shoulder; and by Davies who only differs from West in saying that the infants were carried in a kangaroo skin. [Kangaroo rats or bandicoots were slung upon their backs or fixed to a stick like a rabbit man’s in London (Ross, p. 154).] In Peron’s portrait of Arra Mai'da, the child appears to be carried slung on the mother’s back below the shoulders in a horizontal position, its head showing under the right arm, which is thrown back to support the child. Sitting and Reclining.—Lloyd mentions (p. 1x3) coming unawares across a group of natives seated in tailor-fashion, occupied in making spears. Bligh states (p. 51), “They talked to 11s sitting on their heels, with their knees close into their armpits;” and Peron repeats (pp. 226 and 251) that the natives squatted on their heels. With regard to the women, La Billardiere mentions (II. pp. 47-48), “We observed with surprise, the singular posture of the women, when they sit on the ground. . . . It appears to be a point of decorum with these ladies, as they sit with their knees asunder, to cover with one foot what modesty bids them conceal.” Jorgenson also has said : “ The females, always in a state of