Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/117

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m le on folde<l skiiis at corrobboi'ees. They Bometiines fanced for aniiiseiBent separately. TL*iir dance was peculiar to themselves. When a tribe accepted a new performance, its ni embers made themselves perfect as soon as possible. At the tirst united rendering of the intricacies of the dance (usually performed some time after sunset) there were generally friendly natives from another tribe, and if they were gratified the new piece was conned carefully, and in due time re-enacted by neighbouring tribes. A careful observer noticed that the time occupied in transmitting a com- position from Port Stephens in New South Wales to Seymour in Victoria, a distance of 700 miles, was three years. After traversing a hundred miles the language wa^^ unknown to the singers, for the song travelled overland, and the tribes of the interior spoke a different dialect from that of Port Stepliens, The great Kamihiroi flialect of Liverpool Plains and tril>u- taries of the J3arliijg differed much from that of the eastern €oast. One noteworthy fact was the maimer in which tribes speaking the same dialect were designated amongst the Australians. Almost invariably they were denoted hy the word they used for **no.'* Thus Kamil was the negative. The termination signified that they were the persons using it, and the dialect became known under the same term, Kamilaroi. Wiradhuri (Mr. liidley's spelling) were the persons using Wirriii as their negative, throughout a large tract on the Murray and Mnrrumbidgee rivers and adjacent territory. Numerous instancei^ could be adduced. Earely the afiinnative particle was the ground of the name; and thus was found in Australia a repetition of the form of designation resorted to by the successors of Greek and Eoman colonists in Provence. The South Austrahan explorer, T. McDouall Stuart, recorded that near the centre of the continent an old native made a Masonic sign to him in 1860. When younger men repeated the sign, the astonished Stuart returned it, ami the old man patted him in a friendly manner. The people, thus scattered over their vast home, lived almost entirely on the fruits of the chase. They ate some seeds and rootSj but did not cultivate, and 1ib^ .3asi^5i wck