CHAPTER XIII.
HOSPITALITY AND RESENTMENT — PRIMITIVE ART —
AMPUTATION OF THE LITTLE FINGER — SORCERY.
Pursuing the narrative of the chief facts and incidents of interest which came under the observation of the first voyagers and colonists in relation to the aborigines, and which have been handed down either through the medium of writing or by common report, we come to an occurrence highly illustrative of the character of the New Hollander in his primitive state. During his exploration of the coast, undertaken a few weeks after the establishment of the settlement, the Governor, having called into Broken Bay, proceeded in a boat to land at a late hour in the evening. Owing to the partial darkness and to the shallow nature of the shore at the spot to which the boat had been steered, the party experienced considerable difficulty in disembarking, the boat repeatedly grounding at some distance from the land. A solitary aged aboriginal, who witnessed the unpleasant difficulties by which the whites were beset, stationing himself on an elevated rock, by shouts and signs indicated to the party the part of the coast on which they would find the water sufficiently deep to admit of the boat touching land. Having thus made his experience of these waters, acquired in his fishing expeditions in his bark canoe, available in extricating the strangers from one unpleasant position, the old man offered his services to relieve them from another not less unpleasant, by conducting them to a cave, in which he gave them to understand they would all find shelter from a drenching rain which was falling at the time. Being unwilling, however, to encounter the obscure and unexplored depths of this primitive asylum, they declined to enter, whereupon their benefactor proceeded to collect a quantity of brambles, reeds, and grass, and made arrangements for the party spending the night on shore as comfortably as possible. Having rested till morning in the shelter of the gunyas hastily put together under the direction and with the assistance of the aboriginal, the party proceeded at daylight to examine the cave indicated to them on the previous evening, and which they found, as described, capable of giving shelter to a number of men, forming a roomy and comfortable chamber in the solid rock. The Governor then presented the old man, by whom they had been so kindly and hospitably received, with some trifling gifts, and the party proceeded on their voyage. A week or two after the same locality was visited by another party of excursionists, also under the command of the Governor. This time, also, the old man made his appearance on the beach, accompanied by his son, whom he introduced to Governor Phillip, having previously welcomed the party by a dance and a song, or, more properly, a "corroboree" on a small scale. The Europeans remaining in Broken Bay all the day and night following their arrival, they a second time received abundantly the good offices of their old friend. The time had now arrived, however, when their intimacy and friendship were at once to be severed by a most unexpected and unpleasant occurrence. On the morning following the landing of the boat party, an axe, which was among their implements, was missed, and search being made among the aborigines, who were encamped round the place, it was found in the possession of the old man. It had always been an object with the authorities to impress upon the blacks the nature of the crime of theft, by immediately punishing every act of stealing, and as quickly rewarding all acts of honesty. This time Governor Phillip determined to make no exception to the rule, and, accordingly, approaching the offender, he inflicted with his open hand two or three severe slaps on the shoulder, at the same time pointing significantly to the pilfered axe, to give him to understand the cause of the punishment. The old New Hollander was not, however, to be chastised thus summarily with impunity; his manhood fired at the insult offered in the presence of a multitude of his own people and a crowd of strangers. Darting to where the arms of the tribe were deposited, and seizing a spear, he poised it aloft, and giving utterance to his resentment in the most fierce imprecations, and foaming with rage, was about to hurl the weapon at his assailant, when his arm was arrested by some of the more peaceably disposed of his companions. Thwarted thus in his meditated revenge, he departed in a sulky and angry mood, and did not again for some time make his appearance among the whites.
The indications of the presence of art among the aborigines have before been referred to. As, however, these indications have been observed in a marked degree among the tribes which are now more particularly treated of, it may not be out of place to recur to the subject. A primitive gallery of sculpture, discovered by voyagers on the northern coast of the country, has previously been minutely described. The existence of similar objects of curiosity in the neighbourhood of Port Jackson is mentioned in the journals of some of the early voyagers. They consist of carvings, executed with more or less skill on the smooth surface of large rocks — flint, shell, or bone principally forming the implement substituted for a chisel. The figures generally represented were animals, weapons of different descriptions, men in various attitudes, fish, and serpents. The writer has been given to understand that one of these sculptured rocks is at the present day to be seen on the shores of Port Jackson, in the neighbourhood of Middle Head. In the consideration of this point the mind is forcibly struck by one of those links which would seem to connect the aborigines of Australia with those of America, and which go so far to support the theory which claims a common origin for these people. The following passage from Catlings "Travels among the North American Indians" will at once show a similarity between the two nations in point of artistic performances : —
"I have been unable to find anything like a system of hieroglyphic writing among them; yet their picture-writings on the rocks, and on their robes, approach somewhat towards it. Of the former I have seen a great many in the course of my travels; and I have satisfied myself that they are generally the totems (symbolic names) merely of Indians who have visited these places, and, from a similar feeling of vanity that everywhere belongs to man much alike, have been in the habit of recording their names or symbols, such as birds, beasts, or reptiles, by which each family and each individual is generally known, as white men are in the habit of recording their names at watering-places."
Catlin's work contains, among other illustrations, a few plates representing these picture-writings, and the similarity between the works of the Indians and those of the New Hollanders, as shown in a representation before alluded to in these papers, is most remarkable. In point of skill and ingenuity no difference whatever is observable. There is something very remarkable and interesting in the consideration of this point of coincidence in two races of savage men, separated from each other by more than half the globe — the one people having attained one degree above the lowest level of barbarism — the other, so far as external appearances go, little removed from the lowest point to which it is possible for human nature to descend. While on this subject, another fact, suggestive of a variety of speculations, forcibly recurs to the mind. This is the discovery, made in the early part of the last century, and familiar to every lover of antiquities and student of history, near Mount Sinai, in Arabia, of a place known as the "Written Mountain" — an accumulation of rocks, on the surfaces of which are delineated an immense number of figures and characters. When this place was first discovered, numberless were the conjectures, and extreme the interest, to which it gave rise in the learned and antiquarian world. Among other probable results anticipated as likely to spring from the deciphering of the characters, it was believed that they would throw additional light on the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea; and in order to satisfy the intense curiosity which prevailed, many of the European governments despatched learned men to examine the hieroglyphics, and, if possible, to construe them. Among those who proceeded on this mission was an English bishop, celebrated in his day for his knowledge in everything pertaining to the ancient world. After the expenditure of a considerable amount of attention and time, it was found that the characters belonged to several languages, in which the Arabic prevailed, and were, for the most part, names, emblematic figures, and short sentences, and the date assigned to the commencement of the novel writing was the sixth century. Now, the difference which is observable between the rock-writing found at Mount Sinai, and almost in the centre of the ancient nursery of civilization, and the same writing discovered on the river banks of North America or along the coast of New Holland, appears to consist altogether in degree, being more or less perfect in proportion to the mechanical appliances employed, or the knowledge or ignorance of letters among the sculptors. In every other respect no difference is observable. The questions which naturally follow on these facts, and which present a fertile field for operation and research, are these: Is this writing on the rocks part and parcel of a system which prevailed among the primary inhabitants of the earth prior to the invention of scroll-writing or books, and hitherto overlooked or undiscovered by antiquarians, but preserved among the wild Arabs, Red Indians, and New Hollanders, after their separation from the parent stock, in lieu of a better system, to the present day? Or is it merely the simultaneous development of that desire for an after-life so universal among men, and which, while it actuates the civilized and refined to transmit to posterity their deeds and their names by means of elaborate and beautiful histories, would impel the Arab, the American Indian, and the aboriginal of New Holland to inscribe on the rough rock his name, his initials, or his emblematic symbol to rivet the attention of future generations and "form a lasting link of ages"
His station, generation, even his nation,
Become a thing, or nothing ?"
Among the customs of the New Hollanders there is one in which, not less than in the foregoing, is to be traced a coincidence between them and the aboriginal inhabitants of America. This custom consists in the amputation of the little finger of the left hand. Among the New Hollanders the operation is confined to the females, and is performed during the infant years, being technically called "malgun" by the Port Jackson blacks when first observed by the European settlers. The true meaning or origin of this mutilation has never been properly explained, although numerous conjectures have been hazarded on the point. Like many other customs, not alone among the aborigines of Australia, but among barbarous nations of a much higher standing, the cause or object of the practice is utterly forgotten or unknown among the tribes by whom it is practised; or, if known to some of the sages, is kept a secret with scrupulous care. A somewhat ostensible though not very erudite method of solving the mystery, discovered by some Europeans, consists in the supposition that the small finger of the left hand of all females was amputated for the purpose of affording greater facility in winding up the lines which the aboriginal women exclusively use in fishing, and which they coil up on the left hand when their labour is done. In this latter process no doubt the absence of the little finger, or a portion of it, may be an advantage; but that the advantage is the cause of the finger being removed is a supposition which closely approximates to absurdity. It would, moreover, be attributing to the New Hollander a degree of wanton cruelty which would be hardly credible, to suppose that for so trifling a cause he would inflict such a torture and impose such a deformity on all the females of his tribe. Nothing can possibly afford a better clue for arriving at a just conclusion as to the probable meaning of the ceremony than an investigation of the practice among the North American Indians which has so strong a similitude to the one just mentioned. The ceremony among these last-named people, which is elaborately described by the author before quoted, is of a religious character, and is preceded by a process of torture of the worst possible description, at the termination of which the sufferer, as a last act of self-immolation, approaches a man appointed for the purpose, and placing his finger on the skull of a buffalo, it is chopped off at one stroke, the owner having previously offered it as a sacrifice to the Great Spirit. Among the Red Indians the operation appears to be confined to the men, and the loss of a finger, in the manner referred to, is regarded as a mark of the greatest distinction; nor are they in all instances content with the loss of one member, some warriors and chiefs, the more to bask in the favour of their Manitou, immolating at different times the first joint of several fingers: the greater the number missing the greater the reverence paid to the individual. Here then, most probably, is the true explanation of the practice among the New Hollanders which has been the cause of so much speculation. The amputation of the little finger of female children is — or was at a remote period — intended as a sacrifice to a superior being, or as a propitiatory offering to the only spiritual being at present known to them — the spirit of evil; and the restriction of the ceremony to females may be explained by supposing that it is intended to counter- balance the loss of a front tooth among the male portion of the tribes, as before described. This may be the more readily believed as the knocking out of the tooth, which takes place at a mature age, is a much more painful operation than the excision of a joint of the finger when performed during infancy.
The practice of sorcery and incantations among the New Hollanders is attested by all who have had any degree of intercourse with them, being exhibited to travellers, on their first interviews with the aborigines, in a somewhat amusing manner. Thus, a party travelling in the far interior once came suddenly on a tribe of blacks who had never before been in close contact with Europeans. The latter, terrified at the appearance of the strangers with their horses, hastily collecting their gear, darted into the bush, in the depths of which they were soon effectually concealed and fortified. It being near evening the travellers prepared to encamp for the night, and having erected their tents and lighted their fires, were expending an hour in conversation previous to retiring to rest. Presently a slight rustling was heard among the surrounding brushwood, and the travellers, apprehensive of a hostile visit from the people whom they had previously so unceremoniously disturbed, grasped their arms, but without moving from their position, and listening attentively and straining their eyes in the direction whence the noise had proceeded, soon perceived by the light of their fire, at the distance of some yards, the cause of their apprehensions. This was a very old black man, whom they had previously noticed among the retreating tribe, and who now appeared in a stooping attitude, his hands resting on his knees, staring through an opening in the trees at the scene before him. After having gazed for some time, and finding himself unmolested, he commenced a series of the most extraordinary contortions and gestures, accompanied by some unmusical sounds, by spitting, and every conceivable mode of giving effect to his necromancy, all of which appeared so ludicrous to the whites that, forgetting their possible danger, they at length gave vent to their mirth in loud laughter, which only grew louder as the old man, enraged at their mirth, redoubled his exertions to cast a spell round the party. Finding his enchantment powerless, after exhausting his entire stock of charms, and after expending his whole energy, the old man turned round, and with a peculiar mode of leave-taking, which only gave a climax to the uproarious mirth of the whites, darted into the bush to rejoin his companions. Leichhardt, in the journal of his first expedition, relates that, his party being one night quietly seated in their camp, a solitary black, mistaking their fire for that of his tribe, walked into the midst of them; and, terrified beyond all description at finding himself among such strange beings, clambered with the speed of lightning to the summit of a neighbouring tree, and from this elevated position commenced a series of contortions and gestures, calling aloud in a doleful voice, spitting, and snorting, evidently intending thereby to dissipate the vision, or render powerless the superhuman visitants — for as such, no doubt, he regarded the explorers.