Excerpt from Transactions and Proceedings and Report of the Royal Society of South Australia, Vol. 5: For 1882-82, Issued December, 1882
A good deal has from time to time been written about the aborigines of Australia, and a vast amount of information on this subject has been gathered from all the settled parts of Australia; but all that is known of the aborigines inhabiting the northern portion of this continent has been furnished by a few persons who have paid only short visits to the north coast of Australia, and consequently had not sufficient time to get well acquainted with the natives, their habits and customs. I, therefore, venture to supply a few notes on the above subject, such as have come under my observation during eleven years' residence in the Northern Territory. They may be of no great value, but when compared with the valuable paper on the "Aborigines of South Australia," by Mr. J. D. Woods, in the Society's Transactions for 1879, may furnish some information either in support of or against the supposition that the aborigines all round the Australian coastline have sprung from one source, as well as some new facts hitherto not brought under the notice of the Society.
Physical Characteristics.
The few accompanying portraits of men and women of different tribes by way of illustration will show that the physical characteristics of the natives inhabiting the north coast of Australia vary considerably from those in the south, especially as far as the features are concerned. The majority of the men are well built, but the skin is smooth, and the strong covering of hair all over the body so often met with in the south is almost entirely absent on the north coast, at least among those tribes with which I have come in contact; and the growth of hair on the face is very scanty, but on the head it is invariably thick and curly, and I have met with instances where it strongly resembles that of the Papuans, but these are very rare. The women, as a rule, are not so stout as in the south, and with a few exceptions the hair is not so curly as that of the men.
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