Page:Aboriginesofvictoria01.djvu/66

lviii of the Banksia, or a stick, is nearly always kept burning, and a fire for cooking is made quickly when needed.

The Australian method of producing fire, by twirling the upright stick, is perhaps the most ancient known amongst all the races of men. The Brahmins use it in their religious ceremonies, and it is certainly older than their religion; the Greeks had the pyreia and the trupanon; the Aztecs and Peruvians their fire-sticks; and the superstitious people of the north of Europe go back to the practices of their forefathers, and use will-fire when they believe that their cattle have been injured by witchcraft. And it is as widely known as it is ancient. It is practised in Africa, in America, in Tahiti, in Borneo, in New Zealand, in Java, and in Japan. Amongst savages the fire so obtained is not generally looked upon as in any way peculiar, but in the oldest forms of religion it is regarded as sacred; and the Brahmin using the Arani in a Hindu temple to-day is acting in obedience to a belief as to the manner in which fire was first procured from heaven that is not very different from that entertained by the natives of Victoria. We may well wonder how instruments so simple as those described came to be used for the purpose of procuring fire.

Perhaps the rubbing together of the branches of trees in a gale, which the Rev. Richard Taylor states has caused trees to take fire in New Zealand, may have suggested the use of wood; but it is more probable, I think, that in rubbing sticks together the black discovered that they rapidly heated, and, persevering, at last made them smoke, and finally adding dry grass or bark, produced a flame.

The natives of those parts of Australia which are not visited by the Malays or Papuans have so simple a method of constructing a canoe that the invention cannot have been derived from foreigners. It is, I think, undoubtedly their own; and though I have said that it is simple, a European, without instruction from a native, would probably fail in an attempt to make a bark canoe. Mr. Hamilton Hume attempted it on one occasion and failed.

When the natives have to cross a river, they strip a sheet of bark from a tree; if necessary, it is heated in the ashes of a fire, and moulded to a proper form. The ends are stopped with walls of clay, and it is then ready for use. This, however, is a temporary expedient. A better canoe is made by selecting bark which is thin enough and flexible enough to admit of the ends being tied with a rope of vegetable fibre, stretchers are placed in it and sometimes wooden ribs, and ties are used to keep it in shape.

When the women are fishing they place stones in the canoe, and keep a fire burning, so that they can cook the fish as soon as caught. They propel the canoe either by the long stick (Kownung or Jen-dook), or by a scoop-shaped paddle of bark.

The smallest bark canoes used in Victoria are not more than seven feet six inches in length, and the largest about eighteen feet. The former will carry two persons, and the latter six or more.

The barks of the mountain ash, the stringybark, the red-gum, the blue-gum, the white-gum of the valleys, the Snowy River mahogany, and that of other varieties of eucalypts, are used for making canoes.