Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/117

 time on folded skins at corrobborees. They sometimes danced for amusement separately. Their dance was peculiar to themselves.

When a tribe accepted a new performance, its members made themselves perfect as soon as possible. At the first united rendering of the intricacies of the dance (usually performed some time after sunset) there were generally friendly natives from another tribe, and if they were gratified the new piece was conned carefully, and in due time re-enacted by neighbouring tribes. A careful observer noticed that the time occupied in transmitting a com- position from Port Stephens in New South Wales to Seymour in Victoria, a distance of 700 miles, was three years. After traversing a hundred miles the language was unknown to the singers, for the song travelled overland, and the tribes of the interior spoke a different dialect from that of Port Stephens.

The great Kamilaroi dialect of Liverpool Plains and tributaries of the Darling differed much from that of the eastern coast. One noteworthy fact was the manner in which tribes speaking the same dialect were designated amongst the Australians. Almost invariably they were denoted by the word they used for "no." Thus Kamil was the negative. The termination signified that they were the persons using it, and the dialect became known under the same term, Kamilaroi. Wiradhuri (Mr. Ridley's spelling) were the persons using Wirräi as their negative, throughout a large tract on the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers and adjacent territory. Numerous instances could be adduced. Rarely the affirmative particle was the ground of the name; and thus was found in Australia a repetition of the form of designation resorted to by the successors of Greek and Roman colonists in Provence.

The South Australian explorer, J. McDouall Stuart, recorded that near the centre of the continent an old native made a Masonic sign to him in 1860. When younger men repeated the sign, the astonished Stuart returned it, and the old man patted him in a friendly manner.

The people, thus scattered over their vast home, lived almost entirely on the fruits of the chase. They ate some seeds and roots, but did not cultivate, and they tamed no