Page:Aboriginesofvictoria01.djvu/49

Rh derived from the simple decorations of savage peoples. This reflection may appear to some humiliating, but in truth it is ennobling. It shows that man advances, improves, and invents; and such steps, though the dates of them cannot be recorded, as surely mark the stages of his progress as the discovery of the art of printing, the use of steam in locomotion, the application of electricity to the working of telegraphs, and the contrivances by which secrets are won from nature in analyses, in light-painting, and in the wonderful apparatus which enable us to pierce the further heavens and tell of their mysteries.

Nearly all their work is good and strong and lasting, and often much ingenuity is shown in arranging the knitted work of their head-bands and sashes.

It is not a custom of the natives to use flowers for the purpose of personal decoration, though it is said that girls when dancing have been seen so adorned. Neither do they make necklaces of shells like those of the natives of Tasmania; but fragments of shells are sometimes fastened to the pendant of the necklace of reeds. They do not pierce the ears. They tie bunches of leaves round the ankles or round the legs above the knee when performing in the corrobboree, and these make a strange noise as they move rapidly to and fro. It is believed that the people of New Guinea adopt the same method when they dress themselves for their dances.

The colors used by the natives for painting themselves are red, yellow, white, and black, Blue is not used for painting the body, and indeed it is questionable whether that color was known to them prior to the advent of Europeans. The so-called blue that is seen in the cave paintings is probably a mixture of black and white. White paint is nearly always adopted for the corrobboree dance, and is also generally the color of mourning. The brighter colors have quite a metallic lustre when carefully applied; and on important occasions the men take great pains in painting their bodies. They apply white in streaks and daubs in such a manner as to appear at night by the light of the corrobboree fire like a crowd of skeletons. The natives travelled long distances to procure red-ochre and other paints; and some tribes could get their favorite color only by barter. Whether because it was difficult to obtain, or because it was not generally approved of, it is certain that yellow-ochre was not as much used in the south as in the north. A great many weapons from the north are daubed with a yellow pigment; and I have not seen one so colored amongst those made by the natives of Victoria.

The men and women did not always paint themselves in such manner as whim or fancy dictated. It appears that on occasions of mourning they adopted certain styles of coloring, according as they were near or distant relatives of the deceased; and perhaps, even when they appeared in their most grotesque adornments, they acted as directed by custom or superstition, and presented to their tribe pictures which were understood by them. It is altogether a mistake to suppose that savages act as a rule on impulse, without guide, and without control.

In ornamenting the skin they had to conform to rules. They raised cicatrices after a pattern common to the tribe. One form, at any rate, had to