The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina. Peter Beveridge

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Название The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina
Автор произведения Peter Beveridge
Жанр Изобразительное искусство, фотография
Серия
Издательство Изобразительное искусство, фотография
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066314583



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this torturing ordeal the youths are not permitted to look upon a woman young or old, as the sight of one during this probation would be the means of entailing countless misfortunes, such as the withering of the limbs, loss of eyesight, and in fact general decrepitude.

       Youths, prior to the extraction of the teeth, dare not eat of emu flesh, wild turkey, swan, geese, or black duck, or of the eggs of any of these birds. Did they infringe this law in the slightest possible manner, their hair would become prematurely grey, and the flesh of their limbs would waste away and shrivel up. Any members of their tribes having malformations of limb or body are pointed out as living examples of the dire fate of those who knowingly commit a breach of this aboriginal law. These cripples that are thus put forth as living illustrations have had it impressed upon their minds from their earliest youth that their respective infirmities are entirely due to such indiscretions, and this has been impressed upon their minds so persistently, they have not a doubt on the subject, therefore give implicit credence to the story.

       Having such dread penalties continually placed before them, the various kinds of tabooed food are carefully avoided by the aboriginal youth; thus the full-grown men and women of the tribe come in for many of the good things, which they would not, but for this wise decree. Nevertheless, the makers of this law were wise in their day and generation, and thereby conferred a grand benefit upon ​themselves and their descendants, which is perceptible even to the present day.

      As a rule the aborigines have not any great capacity for physical exertion; at least, they cannot compete with average white men, when violent and long drawn out fatigue chances to be the order of the day; they have thews and sinews enough, too; in fact, usually their whole physique is unexceptionable, but they lack what is commonly termed pluck; therefore, it takes but a small matter beyond common to make them give in. They, however, always evince a certain amount of shame at those times, as is evidenced by their invariably attributing their apparent want of stamina to the fact of their having a sore finger, or some equally trivial ailment.

      They can bear the pangs of hunger, however, wonderfully well; a whole week's starvation is not by any means an uncommon occurrence with them. At those times, they will not stir out of their camps; indeed, they will scarcely turn themselves round, unless perhaps when they think it will lessen their discomfort somewhat if they give their waist-belts an extra twist, thereby contracting the vacuum which lack of food has made so painfully apparent.

      1  Moorongor: Girl

      2  As wives are always obtained by exchange, the relationship of brother-in-law and sister-in-law is usually double.

      3  Enforced bachelors: Those men not having any sisters or wards to give in exchange for wives.

      ​

       Table of Contents

      BLACKFELLOWS' OVENS, HOW FORMED; MOURNING FOR THE DEAD, SIGNS THEREOF; OF SEPULTURE, AND THE CEREMONIES CONNECTED THEREWITH.

       Blackfellows' ovens, or cooking places, have been a fertile source of argument for many years, some holding that they ​are not cooking places at all, but a description of Tumuli, left by some race long since passed away, and quite forgotten; still, so far as the general public are aware, none of the writers on the point have had sufficient curiosity to dig into the mounds, and so set it at rest once and for all.

      A family, or perhaps several families, as the case may be, select a site for their camp, where abundance of game and other sources of food exist, and are procurable with the least expenditure of time and trouble. Towards the middle of the afternoon the hunters drop into camp, with the result of the day's industry, consisting, in all probability, of all sorts and sizes; for our present purpose, however, we will imagine the game to consist of opossums only.

      After the hot clay is removed from the hole, the ashes are carefully swept out, and a thin layer of grass slightly moistened, placed over the bottom, and round the sides, upon which the prepared opossums are nicely packed, and then covered over with more damp grass. The hot clay nodules are then spread equally over the top of the grass, when the whole oven is then closed with the finer earth which originally came out of the excavation. Should this covering be too thin to keep the steam from escaping, it is supplemented by earth, dug in immediate proximity (this supplemented soil accounts fully for the depressions always found about the bases of these ovens). Ashes are never employed for the outside covering, because, being tine, they would percolate through the interlining both of the grass and clay nodules, thereby adding an amount of grit which ​would not improve the flavour or appearance of the food. Before the heat in the clay nodules, and the bottom of the hole has become exhausted, the opossums are beautifully cooked, as perfectly so indeed as though the operation had teen performed in the most improved kitchen range extant.

      When the cooking has been completed the covering is scraped off, and this debris, consisting of calcined clay, ashes, and burnt earth, becomes the nucleus of a black fellow's oven. This process being repeated at short intervals, over a series of years, perhaps indeed for centuries, results in the mounds, which are in reality blacks' ovens, although frequently termed (most improperly so) tumuli.

      As long as the camp remains in one place, the same hole is used for baking their food in, and when it is understood that at least a barrowful of fresh clay is required every time the oven is heated to replace the unavoidable waste by crumbling, which is by no means inconsiderable, in consequence of the clay being used in an unwrought state, it will readily be seen how these mounds gradually, but surely increase. Bones, too, of the animals which they use for food, besides charcoal, etc., tend materially to hasten their growth.

      As a general rule the natives do not erect their loondthals, on these cooking mounds. An exception to this exists, however, on the extensive reedy plains of the Lower Murray, which are annually inundated, and remain so for at least five months out of the twelve.

      On these wide-spreading reed-beds the blackfellows' ovens are of a larger size, and more numerous, than they are in ​any other portion of Australia, thus plainly denoting the at one time denseness of the population in that locality, as well as the abundance of food pertaining thereto. When the mild rains of spring dissolve the snows on the alps, the liberated waters rush down the innumerable tributaries of the Murray, until the volume becomes greater