Page:Some account of the wars, extirpation, habits.djvu/38

30 all answered "Dreeny," that is to England, saying, "Parleevar loggernu ueuee, toggerer Teeny Dreeny, mobberly Parleevar Dreeny," (native dead, tire; goes road England, plenty natives England). From what they had seen of the productions of the superior race, they probably thought there was no happier abode in the universe than England.

He tried to convince them that England was not the home of the departed, and though like some other orators, he talked them down, he did not argue them out of their belief.

It has been often said that they had no idea that there was such a thing as a future state; but this simple reply shows that, however imperfect their notions were on this subject, they quite believed in a life beyond the grave, or rather after the destruction of the body at the funeral pile. He adds that they were fatalists, and also that they believed in the existence of both a good and evil spirit. The latter, he says, they called Rageo wropper, to whom they attributed all their afflictions. They used the same word to express thunder and lightning. He also says that the dying native had a keen perception of his approaching end, and when he knew it was at hand his last desire was to be removed into the open air to die by his fire.

Robinson was a reformer, and an enthusiast in everything, and was too fond of persuading them to put off ancient practices for European customs. I believe he almost thought he could make an Englishman out of black materials. Before long he induced them not to paint themselves, from which, no doubt, they derived warmth; and he now persuaded them to submit to the burial of their dead, instead of burning them. It matters little in what way the living consign their dead to decay, but he was no respecter of ancient customs, and when I visited the asylum at Bruny immediatrly after its abandonment in 1830, I saw many grave-mounds there.

In the same report, he says they always retired to rest at dusk, rising again at midnight, and passing the remainder of the night in singing to his own very particular discomfort, as there was no more sleep for him after they woke up. "My rest," he says, "has been considerably broken"—by this disagreeable practice of theirs of night-singing—"in which they all join. This is kept up till daylight; added to this is the squalling of their children," and here he ends the sentence.

In a subsequent report, August 6, 1831, written after he became acquainted with the hostile tribes, he says that the most popular of their songs were those in which they recounted their attacks on, and their fights with, the whites.

It has been customary to rank the Tasmanian savages with