The Aborigines of Victoria, Volume 1

Front Cover
J. Ferres, Government printer, 1878 - Aboriginal Australians - 939 pages
 

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Page 386 - And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place ! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
Page 469 - Da;monology," book ii., chap. 5, tells us, that "the Devil teacheth how to make pictures of wax or clay, that, by roasting thereof, the persons that they bear the name of may be continually melted or dried away by continual sickness.
Page 291 - Girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians ofChaldea, the land of their nativity...
Page 122 - The ferocious character of the barbarians was displayed in the funeral of a hero, whose valour and fortune they celebrated with mournful applause. By the labour of a captive multitude they forcibly diverted the course of the Busentinus, a small river that washes the walls of Consentia. The royal sepulchre, adorned with the splendid spoils and trophies of Rome, was constructed in the vacant bed; the waters were then restored to their natural channel, and the secret spot, where the remains of Alaric...
Page 87 - And yet indeed she is my sister ; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother j and she became my wife.
Page 323 - It is a paradox in missile power. There are two kinds of boomerang — that which is thrown to a distance straight ahead ; and that which returns on its own axis to the thrower. I saw, on a subsequent occasion,, a native of slight frame throw one of the former two hundred and ten yards, and much further when a ricochet was permitted. With the latter he made several casts truly surprising to witness. The weapon, after skimming breast high nearly out of sight, suddenly rose high...
Page 312 - I have seen a native throw one so as to make it go forty or fifty yards horizontally, and not more than three or four feet from the ground ; it would then suddenly dart into the air to the height of fifty or sixty yards, describe a very considerable curve, and, finally, fall at his feet...
Page 204 - they remain by the carcase, rubbed from head to foot with stinking blubber, gorged to repletion with putrid meat — out of temper from indigestion, and therefore engaged in constant frays — suffering from a cutaneous disorder by high feeding — and altogether a disgusting spectacle. There is no sight in the world...
Page 87 - The family names are perpetuated and spread through the country by the operation of two remarkable laws : — 1st. "That children of either sex always take the family name of their mother.
Page 173 - ... grunt. As the drum waxed faster, so did the dance, until at length the movements were as rapid as the human frame could possibly endure. At some passages they all sprang into the air a wonderful height, and, as their feet again touched the ground with the legs wide astride, the muscles of the thighs were set a quivering in a singular manner, and the straight white lines on the limbs being thus put in oscillation, each stripe for the moment became a writhing serpent, while the air was filled with...

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