P. 232 to 236.)
"TRADITIONAL LAWS RELATIVE TO LANDED PROPERTY. - Landed property does not
belong to a tribe, or to several families, but to a single male; and the
limits of his property are so accurately defined that every native knows
those of his own land, and can point out the various objects which mark
his boundary. I cannot establish the fact and the universality of this
institution better than by the following letter addressed by Dr. Lang,
the Principal of Sydney College, New South Wales, to Dr. Hodgkin, the
zealous advocate of the Aboriginal Races:
"LIVERPOOL, 15th Nov. 1840.
"My Dear Friend, - In reply to the question which you proposed to me some
time ago, in the course of conversation in London, and of which you have
reminded me in the letter I had the pleasure of receiving from you
yesterday, with the pamphlets and letters for America, viz. - 'Whether the
Aborigines of the Australian continent have any idea of property in
land,' I beg to answer most decidedly in the affirmative. It is well
known that these Aborigines in no instance cultivate the soil, but
subsist entirely by hunting and fishing, and on the wild roots they find
in certain localities (especially the common fern), with occasionally a
little wild honey; indigenous fruits being exceedingly rare.
