B 505: Lecture on the Aborigines of Australia and papers on Wirradhurrei dialect, 1837-1840

I will at once inform this audience that I tried to bring all these subjects into one lecture but found I could not so compress it without rendering my statements too dry & bare as many of them will require certain illustrations. I therefore have resolved to confine myself this evening [word crossed out] to a certain portion, and then if you are satisfied and the Committee of the Institution request me, I shall be ready on a future occasion sooner or later to deliver the remaining parts of the various subjects.

1, The first question or questions which will naturally. arise in our minds

arise in our minds or be asked by some of us are: Whence did the original inhabitants of Australia come to this country? When and how did they come? To what nation do they seem to be related? Were they originally as ignorant & uncivilized as they are now? I regret, my friends, that neither I nor any one else can give satisfactory answers to any of these questions, though we may [indecipherable] some hints as to probabilities; but on the whole all will remain little more than suppositions & conjectures. As many of you must know, ancient history, is altogether silent, about this part of the globe; and Aboriginees are utterly without a history of their own, & have scarcely any fragments of tradition. Nor have travellers & naturalists who have more or less explored our coasts added much information on the subject of the Aboriginees.

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x No 1 How the various [words crossed out] the islands in the past, including Australia have been peopled, how long they have been inhabited & whence the original inhabitants came will in all probability always remain a difficult problem to solve [words crossed out] [words crossed out] Nor do their characteristic features their physical formation or their color or their habits & customs or their various languages, or certain religious rites which are not common to all of them throw much light on the question. For in all these [word crossed out] the different nations and tribes vary much. In many respects they resemble Asiatic nations, in others the African races; nor would it be difficult

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To [word crossed out] trace certain resemblances amongst them [words crossed out] [words crossed out] to some of the American tribes. But in all probability they came originally from Asia & might have been a mixed & somewhat degenerate race then, [words crossed out] There is between the Atlantic & the Indian Ocean a chain of [word crossed out] numerous islands, we may say, more than one chain connecting [word crossed out] Australia with [words crossed out] India & other parts of Asia [word crossed out] [word crossed out] There is, for instance New Guinea the Celebes, the Phillipines & Caroline islands & Borneo [word crossed out] nearer still we find [word crossed out] connecting links of islands such as Timor, Java, Sumatra leading close to & the Malay Peninsula [word crossed out] with some smaller ones intervening, the difficulty would not be great to come here by this [indecipherable] Nor is the distance so great from Africa by way of Madagascar & the Mauritians as to render it impossible [word crossd out] that some propitious winds might have driven some boats or canoes in safety to these shores. And thus if in no other way we might account for the [words crossed out] African admixture [word crossed out] supposed to exist in some of the islands & partly in Australia. Whether the orginal inhabitants, left their [word crossed out] former country [words crossed out] from necessity in search of new habitations, or by accident overruled by Providence to people this country

[word crossed out] having perhaps drifted away from their own shores [words crossed out] and found at length other shores, both cases may suppose possible, And supposing they sprung from more civilized races which I am inclined to believe it is likely they understood a little more about navigation & have larger boats than we now are apt to suppose. That the islanders in these seas are a mixed [word crossed out] race, or people not all of the same origin has been generally admitted by travellers & natural historians, [word crossed out] Several of them have been disposed to divide them into three principal races (for instance Lesson a French traveller & Forster too who sailed with Captain Cook) viz: the Hindu & Caucasian race, to which are reckoned also the Malays) & the Mongolian race (such as the inhabitants of the Phillipine & Caroline islands) and thirdly the [word crossed out] darker or Black race, [words crossed out] [words crossed out] including the inhabitants of Madagascar resembling somewhat the Caffer, with a further sub division into the Papuas in New Guinea, the Alfuras includng the Australians of this Continent & Tasmanians. Thse latter or an Aboriginees appear to be the most mixed race & seem in some respects to partake

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of [words crossed out] some of the peculiarities of all others, of the Malays the Mogols, the Negroes ^the Caffers whilst to none of them they show a close resemblance [word crossed out] As regards the general features there is a considerable variety even among them. Their hair is mostly strait, though some incline to the wooley hair of the Africans; their color very dark, though in many individual instances inclining to a lighter shade either of copper or olive. Their faces are less oval than that of the Negro, often rather long, their forheads not very low, their eyes deeply sunk, their noses rather flat the cheekbone somewhat high, their mouths remarkably large jawbones often awkwardly projecting. But there is a considerable proportion of finer specimens seen with more regular features & symetry of formation. Many men & some women too, are well built, attaining to a good hight and if not handsome are certainly not so ugly as nearly all the specimens we now behold. On the whole, however, we must admit them to be a coarse & degenerate race, to which their miserable way of living, sometimes scarcity of food and very inferior sort of food may have added much [words crossed out] [words crossed out]