Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/34

8 sought to impose the peace of death upon the ancestors of the Australians. Their safety was in flight, and they migrated southwards from island to island until in Australia they marched free from molestation. The Tasmanians, he thinks, once occupied the mainland, and were driven southwards by some warlike or skilful tribes. Although to boat across Bass Strait in a canoe might be sometimes hazardous, yet in calm weather it would be easy, and the so-called catamarans of Southern Australia could not be filled with water or upset.

Such, then, are the views which have been recorded by various writers on the Tasmanian and Australian aborigines.

I shall now proceed to deal with this subject as it presents itself to me when looked at from the standpoint of present knowledge.

The level of culture of the Tasmanians is best indicated, apart from their customs and beliefs, by the primitive character of their weapons and implements. The former were a spear, which was merely a thin pole hardened and pointed in the fire, and a club which was also used as a missile weapon. Flints chipped on one side were used for cutting, scraping, and being held in the hand, without a handle, for chopping.

The only means they had for navigating the waters was a rude raft, or a bundle of bark tied with grass or strips of kangaroo skin into a canoe-like shape, by which a river or a narrow strait of the sea, such as that between Maria Island or Bruni Island and the mainland, could be crossed in calm weather.

Thus, as pointed out by Dr. E. B. Tylor, the Tasmanians were representatives of the stone-age development, in a stage lower than that of the Quaternary period of Europe, and the distinction may be claimed for them of being this lowest of modern nomad tribes. The Australians stand on a somewhat higher level than the Tasmanians. They are better armed, with a formidable reed spear propelled by the