Page:An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal.djvu/74

 Ixiv IXTUODUCTIOX.

They believe in witchcraft and the work of demons. After the death of the body, the soul still likes and requires food."
 * fire.' They have no circumcision. They have no forms of prayer.

" Dr. Logan thought that the Dra vidians have a strong ]Melane- sian or Indo-Afric element, and says that a negro race overspread India before both the Scythians and the Aryans. De Quatrefages agrees with him, and says that, long before the historical period, India was inhabited by a black race resembling the Australians, and also, before history began, a yellow race came from the north- east. Of the Tamilians Dr. Logan says : — ' Some are exceedingly Iranian, more are Semitico-Iranian ; some are Semitic, others Australian ; some remind us of Egyptians, while others again have Malayo-Polynesian and even Semang and Papuan features.' Professor Max Miiller found in the Gonds and other non- Aryan Dravidians traces of a race closely resembling the negro. Sir George Campbell thinks that the race in occupation of India before the Aryans was Negrito. Even in the seventh centuiy of our era, a Brahman grammarian calls the Tamil and Telugu people Mlechchas, that is, aboriginals. Dr. Muir thinks that the Aryan wave of conquest must have been broken on the Yindhya mountains, the northern barrier of the Dekkan."

COXCLUSIOX.

In this discussion, I have endeavoured to show the origin of our Australian numerals, the composition and derivation of the chief personal pi'onouns, and of a number of typical w^ords for common tilings, and of these many more could be cited and ex- amined in the same way. I have shown, so far as I can, that these pronouns, and numerals, and test-words, and, incidentally, one of the postpositions, are connected with root-words, w^hicli must be as old as the origin of the language ; for such ideas as 'before,' 'begin,' 'first,' 'another,' 'follow,' 'change,' 'many,' seem to be essential to the existence of any language. I think I may safely say the same thing about the root-words for ' water,' ' dumb,' and ' eye.' It thus appears, from the present investigation, that our Australians have a common heritage, along with the rest of the world, in these root-words; for, if these blacks are a separate creation and so have no kindred elsewhere, or were never in con- tact with the other races of mankind, I cannot conceive how they have come to possess primitive words so like those in use over a very wide area of the globe. I therefore argue that they are an integral portion of the human race. If so, what is their origin % On this point, our present discussion may have thrown some light.

J.F.

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