ministers to his own wants (with such help as he gets from his wives), and has no one whom he can call servant, yet he enjoys the pleasures belonging to the exercise of power. If a doctor, he orders, and he is obeyed; if a dreamer, he dreams, and the interpretation of his dream is received as truth; if a warrior, the fighting-men obey him; if an old man, all pay respect to him. The women
present instance, was deaf to their appeals, they exclaimed—'Marmingatha bullarto pork-wadding; quanthueeneera?' 'Marmingatha is very sulky—and why?'; and they commenced throwing ashes in the direction in which they believed she resided, saying 'T'see Waugh,!' an exclamation of contempt and defiance—after which they returned to the willams."—Australasiatic Reminiscences, Bunce, p. 73.
Sturt found, on or near the banks of the Macquarie River, a group of seventy huts, each capable of holding from twelve to fifteen persons. They appeared to be permanent habitations, and all of them fronted the same point of the compass. In another place he found in the thickest part of a brush of Melaleuca a deserted village. The spot had evidently been chosen because of the shelter afforded by the shrubs. The huts were large and long, all facing the same point of the compass, and in every way resembling the huts occupied by the natives of the Darling.—Sturt's Expedition, 1828-9.
"The native camps as far north as the seventeenth parallel of south latitude are generally bark lean-tos, made of two upright forked sticks, with a sapling resting in the forks, and a sheet of bark laid against the sapling and curving over it. Further north there are what are called 'two-story' camps. These are formed of four forks, with saplings on each side, and with cross pieces laid on them. On these rests a sheet of bark bent in the centre, tent fashion. Fires are always found at each end. These camps are usually on high ground, and out of the reach of floods. The fires, it is believed, are intended to drive off the mosquitos. In some instances, where forked saplings were not obtainable, the roots of trees were utilized. They were turned end up, the stems being buried in the ground. In the dry season, a sheet of bark doubled in the middle with the ends resting on the ground is the usual covering. On the coast their camps are all made of bent and arched saplings, and filled in with boughs, forming closed chambers, either round or oblong; sometimes of considerable size, and having a hole to get in at. At other places only bough lean-tos occur."—Mr. Norman Taylor, Geological Surveyor, MS.
Ordinarily their dwellings are of a very unsubstantial character. In the Port Lincoln district "their habitations are of a very simple and primitive construction. In the summer and in dry, fine weather they heap up some branches of trees in the form of a horseshoe, for protection against the winds; in the winter, and in wet weather, however, they make a kind of hut or bower with the branches of the casuarina, in the shape of a deep niche, and erect them as perpendicularly as they can, thereby to facilitate the dripping off of the rain. In those parts of the country where they have gum-trees (Eucalypti) they peel off the bark, and fix it so well together as to make the roof quite waterproof. In front of these huts they always burn a fire during the night for warming their feet; and in the cold weather every one lies between a small heap of burning coals in front and at the back, for keeping warm the upper part of the body. As the slightest motion must bring them into contact with these burning coals, it naturally occurs that they at times seriously burn themselves."—C. Wilhelmi.
Collins saw on the sea-coast huts formed of pieces of bark from several trees, put together in the form of an oven, with an entrance, and large enough to hold six or eight persons. Their fire was always at the mouth of the hut, rather within than without. Those living in the bush, at some distance from the coast, contented themselves with, for each, a sheet of bark, bent in the middle and placed on its two ends on the ground.—New South Wales, Collins, p. 360.
Shortly after the Europeans came to occupy Victoria the natives ceased to build huts, and they no longer assembled in villages. The inducements to plunder, their fear of the invaders, the depression caused by the appearance of a race possessing appliances so much superior to any known to them, and the impossibility of preserving inviolate the lands which their people had held for ages, caused them to wander aimlessly from place to place, and to seek shelter and find refuge in the more advantageous localities belonging to tribes to a certain extent removed at that time from the influences of the white men—localities which, before they met the whites, they would never have been permitted to enter except as guests or as conquerors.
