Natives of Australia Author:Northcote Whitridge Thomas Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II PHYSICAL APPEARANCE Stature of the Arunta. Physiognomy. Pigmentation, skin, hair. Body scars. Small extremities. Natives of South Australia and ... more »Queensland. Racial fetor. Track of foot. Carriage of body. AUSTRALIA is a very large area, and even apart from intermixture evidenced by variations in the form of the skull, we should expect to find that climate and food, as well as the greater or less advance in the few arts of life which the aborigines possess, have no small influence on the bodily appearance of the different tribes. Added to these influences we have in our own day the influence of the white man, seldom anything but demoralising, of the 'comforts' of civilisation, mainly in the shape of whisky and of European diseases. It must therefore be understood that a description of a tribe in one district is not necessarily true of a tribe in another or even in the same district. It will therefore be convenient to record the impressions of various observers without attempting to sum them up. Near the centre of the continent lives the Arunta tribe, till recently virtually unknown, but forming, since 1898, the subject of much discussion owing to its anomalous social organisation and its ingenious philosophy; for so it must be termed, unless we extend to it the title of religion. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen found the Arunta to be about 5 ft. 5 inches high on an average, the tallest being 5 inches more, the shortest 8 inches less ; the women were about 4 inches shorter, and varied to the extent of 5 inches; so that they are, on the whole, slightly shorter than we are. The chest measurement of the men was 36 inches on an average, or considerably more than the English average; it may be noted that the chest and upper extremities are almost invariably better dev...« less