Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/194

 120 THE PRIMITIVE CONDITION OF MANKIND. and pronouns, and a double set of personal pronouns for the sake of euphony and expression. Verbs are regularly formed from roots consisting either of one vowel and two consonants or of two vowels and three consonants. The names of human relationships are far more copious than in English. In many respects we have niceties of expression which we do not find in our own language; for instance, instead of having only one word for the interrogative and relative "when," they have two. Now, the Aborigines with their present power of invention, if they were only developed from a still lower grade of human nature, could never have constructed this language for themselves. They possess the faculty of learning other languages readily, but anyone who knows them well has found they have really no power to invent language. And this points to the conclusion that they never could have risen to their present state from a lower grade of savage life, but must have descended to their barbarism from a state more nearly approaching civilisation; and their language must be the remnant of what was then in use amongst them. Its inflections have been retained, but its range contracted within the limits of the objects of their present sphere of existence. The natives possess many customs which are just as manifestly remnants of a higher state of social life as their language. Now, many of their customs are of a most laborious and burdensome character, involving much suffering, and having many curious rites connected with them. But while the natives observe them with great exactness and particularity, they can give no account of their meaning or origin. Now, it is unreasonable to suppose that these customs originated without a cause, that they never meant anything. The right conclusion is that they once had a meaning and an intelligible purpose; but, like many religious ceremonies in our own land, the meaning has died out, and they are now observed only from superstitious ceremonialism. And this conclusion carries with it the further inference that the natives must have descended from a higher state of civilisation, when they knew the signification of the customs which they now ignorantly observe.