Genealogy of the Australians

It can hardly be doubted that, from the stream of migration which entered the Pacific from the westward, rills were diverted to the continent of Australia. Here, too, we have a mingled strain, whose main constituents are a fairer straight-haired, and a darker crisp-haired race. Relations with an older world may unquestionably be presumed. The fundamental ideas, and many details in the initiatory rites for boys and girls, are thoroughly Oceanian, and connect at least Northern Australia with the neighbouring New Guinea and its adjacent islands. Traces of taboo also appear; and if their usage is less sharply marked than in Polynesia, the cause may be found in the coarser life and more indigent condition of the Australians. In former times more consistent and more highly-finished customs may have prevailed.

Man of New South Wales. (From a photograph.) [Click on picture for higher resolution]

For the racial dualism, which the rapid progress of crossing has done its best to obliterate, we can look, so far as our present knowledge allows, only to Papuas and Malays. It is a fact that Malays live, temporarily or permanently, among North Australian tribes, and exercise no small influence upon them; while on the other hand there can be no doubt as to the temporary intercourse of the Torres Islanders with both Papuas and Australians. On the north-west coasts of Australia we can prove Malayan influence more certainly than any other. The extension of the bamboo in Arnhemland, the existence of small-pox before the arrival of Europeans, the objection to eat pig-meat, testify to this. Perhaps also we may trace to the same cause the absence of the boomerang in North Australia.

Without doubt these races must have begun to permeate long before the historical period. The Malay fisheries on the North Australian coast are, says Campbell, a settled institution, pointing to a long duration. The evidence of Tasmania would lead us to assume a crisp-haired race as originally inhabiting Australia; for the Tasmanian hair was decidedly more woolly than the Australian.

The apparently uniform conditions of Australia are complicated by what Bastian calls "the shadow which the great continent of Asia casts over these oceanic groups of islands." We cannot disprove that Malayo-Polynesian elements may have reached Australia from the eastward also, just as easily as they got to New Guinea; but no evidence for it is forthcoming. Norfolk Island was uninhabited when discovered by Europeans. Nor is the connection with New Guinea in any way intimate. Whether remains of the dingo are really found in the Australian Post-pliocene or not, probability is strongly in favour of his having been introduced by human immigrants; and the New Guinea dog is different. Ethnographical objects, too, are not alike on the two sides of Torres Straits.