appear, whatever latitude might be permitted in regard to others. None of the people of Australia practise the art of tattooing as it is known in the Tonga Islands, in Samoa, or in New Zealand. Their elevated scars are like the large punctures or ridges, some in straight and others in curved lines, which Capt. Cook observed on the bodies of the natives of Tasmania, and which are seen also among the men of New Guinea, where are used red-ochre to paint the body, and a piece of bone in the septum of the nose. This method of ornamentation has no doubt been gradually improved by the brown race until it reached its highest development in the Marquesas. The women of Brumer Island ornament the skin with zigzag markings, but they are also frequently elaborately tattooed, and there, perhaps, may be found the art in a transition state. The figure of a native of Queensland, in this work, shows a very curious set of scars, and it is wonderful how he could have endured the pain of the operations necessary to this kind of embellishment.
The natives of Australia embellish their weapons with incised lines, using the band, the herring-bone, the chevron, St. Andrew's cross, and detached circles. Many of these are so combined as to form geometrical patterns that have an excellent effect. They do not use coils or scrolls; and there are rarely seen, except in their pictures, figures of animals or vegetables. It is true that they represent in rude lines forms of animals, such as the iguana, on their shields; but these, like the lines on the same weapons showing rivers and lakes—the boundaries of their lands—are intended to convey to others the name or place of their tribe.
They roughly carve their weapons with the stone tomahawk and stone chisel, but the ornamentation is effected by a very neat tool, formed of one side of the under-jaw and tooth of the opossum. This, when fixed to a wooden handle, is a most useful cutting instrument.
The patterns carved on the shields and clubs figured in this work have been faithfully copied. All the lines are repeated, and thus there are preserved lasting records of the native art of this people. I cannot discover, except as regards the devices on the shields, that there is any difference in the modes of ornamentation amongst the natives of Victoria. They used the same figures, but it is almost certain that particular forms were preferred to others in some localities.
Their shields, their clubs, their throwing-sticks, and their cloaks, are often profusely ornamented. In the south their spears are not ornamented, while in the north they are marked much after the pattern used by the natives of the South Sea Islands in embellishing their arrows. The natives of West Australia appear to have but one rather remarkable pattern for their shields, and they do not in any way ornament the throwing-stick. Some of their spears, however, are ornamented, the colors used being black and white.
Implements made of bone are not, as far as I know, decorated in any way. Neither the ancient nor modern bone tools or ornaments in my possession are marked at all.
The boomerang is not ornamented anywhere, I believe, except on the north-east coast and in the east.
