Page:Some account of the wars, extirpation, habits.djvu/43

Rh these unfortunates are produced is of the most temporary nature, and usually dissolved after a brief intimacy, the care of the offspring of it being wholly surrendered to the mother, in whose charge it seems never to reach even adolescence.

It is nowhere stated, that I know of, that polygamy was practised by the Tasmanian; but as the man Joe, whose death and funeral ceremonies I have recorded, had two wives at the same time, it cannot be said that the practice was unknown to them.

To the other services rendered by the woman must be added the entire care of the children. She carried her infant, not in her arms, but astride her shoulders, holding its hands.

The construction and propulsion of the catamaran, or boat of the native, was also the work of the women. This "machine," as Robinson contemptuously calls it, was only used by the people of the south and west coasts. The northern and east coast tribes, he says, "have not the slightest knowledge of this machine." (Report, Feb. 24th, 1831). The configuration of the north and east coasts—which are not much indented with bays—made it hardly necessary to the people inhabiting them. It was of considerable size, and something like a whale-boat, that is, sharp-sterned, but a solid structure, and the natives in their aquatic adventures sat on the top. It was generally made of the buoyant and soft velvety bark of the swamp tea-tree (MelalucaMelaleuca [sic] Sp.), and consisted of a multitude of small strips bound together. The mode of its propulsion would shock the professional or amateur waterman. Common sticks with points instead of blades were all that were used to urge it with its living freight through the water, and yet I am assured that its progress was not so very slow. My informant, Alex. M‘Kay, told me they were good weather judges, and only used this vessel when well assured there would be little wind and no danger, for an upset would have been risky to some of the men, who unlike the women, were not always good swimmers, though most of them were perfect. In crossing from South Bruny to Port Esperance, which they sometimes did, the distance is not less than eight or ten miles, and in stormy weather this is no pleasant adventure, even in a first-class boat.

They were great flesh-eaters but not cannibals, and never were; and some of them being incautiously asked if they ever