



Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)






CHILDREN OF WILD AUSTRALIA

[Illustration: BOY SPEARING FISH]




CHILDREN OF WILD AUSTRALIA

BY

HERBERT PITTS

AUTHOR OF
"THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH"

[Illustration: Decoration]

WITH EIGHT COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON
OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER


PRINTED BY
TURNBULL AND SPEARS,
EDINBURGH


                   TO
            DEAR LITTLE MARY
            THIS LITTLE BOOK
                 ABOUT
     THE LITTLE BLACK BOYS AND GIRLS
           OF A FAR-OFF LAND
            IS DEDICATED BY
              HER FATHER




MY DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS,

All the time I have been writing this little book I have been wishing I
could gather you all around me and take you with me to some of the
places in faraway Australia where I myself have seen the little black
children at their play. You would understand so much better all I have
tried to say.

It is a bright sunny land where those children live, but in many ways a
far less pleasant land to live in than our own. The country often grows
very parched and bare, the grass dies, the rivers begin to dry up, and
the poor little children of the wilderness have great difficulty in
getting food. Then perhaps a great storm comes and a great quantity of
rain falls. The rivers fill up and the grass begins to grow again, but
myriads of flies follow and they get into the children's eyes and
perhaps blind some of them, and the mosquitoes come and bite them and
give them fevers sometimes.

Yet though much of the land is wilderness--bare, sandy plains--beautiful
flowers bloom there after the rains. Lovely hibiscus, the giant scarlet
pea, and thousands of delicate white and yellow everlastings are there
for the eyes to feast upon, but the loveliest flowers of all are
frequently the love and tenderness and unselfishness which bloom in the
children's hearts.

I have left Australia now and settled down again in the old homeland,
but the memories of the eight years I spent among the dear little
children out there are still very delightful ones, and they, more than
anything I have read, have helped me to write this little book for you.

Your Sincere friend,

HERBERT PITTS

DOUGLAS, I.O.M., 1914




CONTENTS

CHAP.                                               PAGE
      INTRODUCTORY LETTER                              7

   I. INTRODUCTORY                                    11

  II. PICCANINNIES                                    17

 III. "GREAT-GREAT-GREATEST-GRANDFATHER"              23

  IV. BLACKFELLOWS' "HOMES"                           26

   V. EDUCATION                                       31

  VI. WEAPONS, ETC., WHICH CHILDREN LEARN TO
        MAKE AND USE                                  35

 VII. HOW FOOD IS CAUGHT AND COOKED                   40

VIII. CORROBBOREES, OR NATIVE DANCES                  44

  IX. MAGIC AND SORCERY                               47

   X. SOME STRANGE WAYS OF DISPOSING OF THE DEAD      56

  XI. SOME STORIES WHICH ARE TOLD TO CHILDREN         60

 XII. MORE STORIES TOLD TO CHILDREN                   65

XIII. RELIGION                                        68

 XIV. YARRABAH                                        72

  XV. TRUBANAMAN CREEK                                79

 XVI. SOME ABORIGINAL SAINTS AND HEROES               85

XVII. THE CHOCOLATE BOX                               89




ILLUSTRATIONS


BOY SPEARING FISH           _Frontispiece_

                                      PAGE
HUNTING PARROTS AND COCKATOOS           12

ABORIGINAL CHILDREN AND NATIVE HUT      28

LEARNING TO USE THE BOOMERANG           42

YOUTH IN WAR PAINT                      52

GIRLS' CLASS AT YARRABAH SCHOOL         73

BATHING OFF JETTY AT YARRABAH           78

THE FIRST SCHOOL AT MITCHELL RIVER      84




CHILDREN OF WILD AUSTRALIA




CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY


This little book is all about the children of wild Australia--where they
came from, how they live, the weapons they fight with, their strange
ideas and peculiar customs. But first of all you ought to know something
of the country in which they live, whence and how they first came to it,
and what we mean by "wild Australia" to-day, for it is not all
"wild"--very, very far from that.

Australia is a very big country, nearly as large again as India, and no
less than sixty times the size of England without Wales. Nearly half of
it lies within the tropics so that in summer it is extremely hot. There
are fewer white people than there are in London, in fact less than five
millions in all and more than a third of these live in the five big
cities which you will find around the coast, and about a third more in
smaller towns not so very far from the sea. The further you travel from
the coast the more scattered does the white population become, till some
hundred miles inland or more you reach the sheep and cattle country
where the homes of the white men are twenty or even more miles apart.
Further back still lies a vast, and, as far as whites are concerned,
almost unpeopled region into which, however, the squatter is constantly
pushing in search of new pastures for his flocks and herds, and into
which the prospector goes further and further on the look-out for gold.
This country we call in