'exactly how the case stands' in the present instance, there are one or two points in which he does not define this quite clearly, and with your kind permission I will endeavour to show which these are. After alluding to the canoes they saw at Rockingham Bay, Mr. Jukes observes, that 'north of this the canoes improved till we came to the large ones belonging to the Papuan Islanders of Torres Straits.' The improvement in the canoes here spoken of conveys correctly the state of the case so far; but at Cape York we arrive—in the first instance on the mainland—at important canoes, with double outriggers and sails, belonging to the Australians; while next to these, increasing in size and importance, are the canoes of the Kowraregas, or natives of the Prince of Wales's Islands, who are friendly with the Gudang tribe at Cape York, and in constant communication with them. The Kowraregas are a true island tribe, more Australian than Papuan, though in many respects superior to the Australians; and it is the large canoes of these people, and not of Papuans, which we have on the Australian side of the straits. The Kowraregas intermarry both with the Australians and with the more Papuan tribes of the islands nearer New Guinea, as the Kulcalagas, Badulegas, Italegas, and others; indeed the islanders of the straits generally appear to be more or less a mixed race, with a greater or less proportion of Australian or Papuan character as their islands approach either side of the straits. The Prince of Wales's Islanders have no direct communication with New Guinea, but get ornaments, feathers, and weapons through the Badus and other tribes, who obtain them either from New Guinea or from islands immediately upon its coast, and take back in return from the Kowraregas the shell of a large flat oyster they call Marri, which is much valued by the people to the north for making breast ornaments. After speaking of the canoes of Torres Straits, with sails and outriggers, Mr. Jukes remarks, that 'west of the Gulf of Carpentaria these disappear at once; and the natives at Port Essington had nothing that could be called a canoe until they got some of the Malay sampans.' I think Mr. Jukes is right as to the disappearance of the sailing canoes west of the Gulf of Carpentaria; but the sketches of canoes taken by Mr. Banes, the artist of Mr. Gregory's expedition, and now to be seen in the chart-room of the Royal Geographical Society, show that the natives of the Goulburn Islands, upwards of two hundred miles to the westward of Cape Arnhem, on the western side of the Gulf of Carpentaria, have well-made paddle canoes, capable of carrying, at least, three men in a rough sea. At Port Essington we saw two kinds of wooden canoes—one brought over by the Malays, and another and smaller kind, which appeared to me to be native; but of this I am not sure, as I do not find any note about it upon my sketches of them. Macgillivray says (Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, vol. I., p. 146) that before they obtained canoes from the Malays, bark canoes were in general use among the natives here.[1] Speaking
- ↑ In Macgillivray's work it is stated that at Rockingham Bay the canoes are constructed of a single sheet of bark of the gutn-tree, brought together at the ends and secured by stitching. The sitter squats down with his legs doubled under him, and uses a small square piece of bark in each hand as paddles, with one of which he also bales the water out by dexterously scooping it up from behind him. At Port Essington the natives at one period used bark canoes, but at the time of his
