Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/143

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TASMANIAN NATIVES. 115 I I I aarryinn; within a prohibited section. Can popes or kings lle^e an equal conformity to their codes? ■JJlThe aborigines of Tasmania have been a stumbling*block to theorists. Their coarse, short hair differed from that of Australians; they had neither the marvellous boomerang nor the forceful wommerah: and yet unless they coukl be proved to have mifp^ated from Australia, it seemed necessary to admit that they nprang from Tasmanian soil, and such an evolution seemed to imply that every island could generate its own race; hi which case so many independent races and lann^uar^es ought to have existed as would have defied computation, and were clearly incompatible with the proofs furnished by comparative philology. One learned writer surmised that the Tasmanians sailed or rowed round the continent; another rejected the theory because the skill in navigation required for such a feat could not have been subsequently lost. Others have deduced them from the Africans, and supposed that at one time land extended, and man roamed, from Australia to Madagascar. Yet, different as to statu je and hair, the islanders were in some points like the xiustraliaos. Like them they raised cicatrices to adorn their bodies. Like them they venerated stones of rock-crystal ; like them they initiated yotuig men in tribal mysteries ; like them at those mysteries they used among other symbols which women and children might not see, an oldong piece of wood which, swung by a string in swift circles3 caused a booming sound. Jit those mysteries also, on island and contment, there were obser- vances which might seem derived from the Dionysiac orgies which had their counterpart in Hindostan, as well as among the islands of the Paciiic, but were screened from the public gaze in Australia, Australian and Tasmanian men at their dances, by simLdtaneous hissing and rapid vibration of the lijis, made a fierce sound, <|uite unlilie the quivering roar produced by the Maoris in their war-dance. There was no wild dog in Tasmania, but his presence on the mainland was easy to account for on the supposition that the wandering Malays, who frequented the northern coasts for man 3' centuries, had left dogs on shore. On the other hand, the Thiflavlmis cijnocephalus mu the Snn'ophilus )ugh both marsupial, were not found on the ursimis.