But Surely
We Should Discriminate Between Ignorance And Defect Of Understanding.
The Truth Was, They Often Neither Comprehended The Design
Nor conceived
the utility of such works, but on subjects in any degree familiarised
to their ideas, they generally testified
Not only acuteness of discernment
but a large portion of good sense. I have always thought that the distinctions
they shewed in their estimate of us, on first entering into our society,
strongly displayed the latter quality: when they were led into our respective
houses, at once to be astonished and awed by our superiority, their attention
was directly turned to objects with which they were acquainted.
They passed without rapture or emotion our numerous artifices and contrivances,
but when they saw a collection of weapons of war or of the skins of animals
and birds, they never failed to exclaim, and to confer with each other
on the subject. The master of that house became the object of their regard,
as they concluded he must be either a renowned warrior, or an expert hunter.
Our surgeons grew into their esteem from a like cause. In a very early stage
of intercourse, several natives were present at the amputation of a leg.
When they first penetrated the intention of the operator,
they were confounded, not believing it possible that such an operation
could be performed without loss of life, and they called aloud to him
to desist; but when they saw the torrent of blood stopped, the vessels
taken up and the stump dressed, their horror and alarm yielded to astonishment
and admiration, which they expressed by the loudest tokens. If these
instances bespeak not nature and good sense, I have yet to learn
the meaning of the terms.
If it be asked why the same intelligent spirit which led them to contemplate
and applaud the success of the sportsman and the skill of the surgeon,
did not equally excite them to meditate on the labours of the builder
and the ploughman, I can only answer that what we see in its remote cause
is always more feebly felt than that which presents to our immediate grasp
both its origin and effect.
Their leading good and bad qualities I shall concisely touch upon.
Of their intrepidity no doubt can exist. Their levity, their fickleness,
their passionate extravagance of character, cannot be defended.
They are indeed sudden and quick in quarrel; but if their resentment
be easily roused, their thirst of revenge is not implacable. Their honesty,
when tempted by novelty, is not unimpeachable, but in their own society
there is good reason to believe that few breaches of it occur.
It were well if similar praise could be given to their veracity: but truth
they neither prize nor practice. When they wish to deceive they scruple not
to utter the grossest and most hardened lies.* Their attachment and gratitude
to those among us whom they have professed to love have always remained
inviolable, unless effaced by resentment, from sudden provocation: then,
like all other Indians, the impulse of the moment is alone regarded by them.
[*This may serve to account for the contradictions of many of their
accounts to us.]
Some of their manufactures display ingenuity, when the rude tools with which
they work, and their celerity of execution are considered. The canoes,
fish-gigs, swords, shields, spears, throwing sticks, clubs, and hatchets,
are made by the men. To the women are committed the fishing-lines, hooks
and nets. As very ample collections of all these articles are to be found
in many museums in England, I shall only briefly describe the way in which
the most remarkable of them are made. The fish-gigs and spears are commonly
(but not universally) made of the long spiral shoot which arises from the top
of the yellow gum-tree, and bears the flower. The former have several prongs,
barbed with the bone of kangaroo. The latter are sometimes barbed
with the same substance, or with the prickle of the sting-ray, or with stone
or hardened gum, and sometimes simply pointed. Dexterity in throwing
and parrying the spear is considered as the highest acquirement. The children
of both sexes practice from the time that they are able to throw a rush;
their first essay. It forms their constant recreation. They afterwards heave
at each other with pointed twigs. He who acts on the defensive holds a piece
of new soft bark in the left hand, to represent a shield, in which he receives
the darts of the assailant, the points sticking in it. Now commences
his turn. He extracts the twigs and darts them back at the first thrower,
who catches them similarly. In warding off the spear they never present
their front, but always turn their side, their head at the same time
just clear of the shield, to watch the flight of the weapon;
and the body covered. If a spear drop from them when thus engaged,
they do not stoop to pick it up, but hook it between the toes and so lift it
until it meet the hand. Thus the eye is never diverted from its object,
the foe. If they wish to break a spear or any wooden substance, they lay it
not across the thigh or the body, but upon the head, and press down the ends
until it snap. Their shields are of two sorts. That called 'illemon'
is nothing but a piece of bark with a handle fixed in the inside of it.
The other, dug out of solid wood, is called 'aragoon', and is made as follows,
with great labour. On the bark of a tree they mark the size of the shield,
then dig the outline as deep as possible in the wood with hatchets,
and lastly flake it off as thick as they can, by driving in wedges.
The sword is a large heavy piece of wood, shaped like a sabre, and capable
of inflicting a mortal wound. In using it they do not strike with the convex
side, but with the concave one, and strive to hook in their antagonists
so as to have them under their blows.
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