Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/139

134 CHAPTER XVII.

THEIR LACK OF COMMEMORATIVE MONUMENTS, EVEN THE MOST SIMPLE, TOGETHER WITH THE CAUSE THEREOF. THEIR METHOD OF GENERATING FIRE. OF OPOSSUM CLOAKS AND THEIR MANUFACTURE. OF THE UTILISATION OF GRASS SEEDS, &C.

The continued and persistent endeavour of these people to forget those of their tribes who have paid nature's just debt prevents them from possessing any monuments or other analagous [sic] objects wherewith to commemorate particular or striking events. Even the rude cavern common to most uncivilised races is unknown here, but the reason for this is obvious enough. Any such lasting work would, without doubt, have the effect of keeping the memory of those who constructed them, or those whom they were intended to honour, ever present to their descendants, and the avoiding of this is the one thing in which all the aborigines of tho colony are unanimous.

The innate terror of death, which the aborigines as a rule possess, gives rise to this peculiar characteristic, besides it is the cause which induces the cowardice so largely found in the aboriginal character, and altogether precludes anything approaching to combinations in their relations with hostile tribes, as (to quote their own adage)—"What would it advantage me if my tribe quite destroyed the Bukeen, if I should be killed in the struggle?" Thus it follows that every individual man's corpus is every individual man's special care, or, in other words, number one is the aboriginal golden rule.