A Christmas with Australian Blacks

BY

J. S. PONDER
 

 'I say, Dora, can't we get up some special excitement for sister Maggie, seeing she is to be here for Christmas? I fancy she will, in her home inexperience, expect a rather jolly time spending Christmas in this forsaken spot. I am afraid that my letters home, in which I coloured things up a bit, are to blame for that,' my husband added ruefully.

'What can we do, Jack?' I asked. 'I can invite the Dunbars, the Connors and the Sutherlands over for a dance, and you can arrange for a kangaroo-hunt the following day. That is the usual thing when special visitors come, isn't it?'

'Yes,' he moodily replied, 'that about exhausts our programme. Nothing very exciting in that. I say, how would it do to take the fangs out of a couple of black snakes and put them in her bedroom, so as to give her the material of a thrilling adventure to narrate when she goes back to England?'

'That would never do,' I protested, 'you might frighten her out of her wits. Remember she is not strong, and spare her everything except very innocent adventures. Besides, snakes are such loathsome beasts.'

'How would it do, then, to give a big Christmas feast to the blacks?' he hazarded.

'Do you think she would like that?' I asked doubtfully. 'Remember how awfully dirty and savage-looking they are.'

A large order

'Oh, we would try and get them to clean up a bit, and come somewhat presentable,' he cheerfully replied. 'And, Dora,' he continued, 'I think the idea is a good one. Sister Maggie is the Hon. Secretary or something of the Missionary Society connected with her Church, and in the thick of all the 'soup and blanket clubs' of the district. She will just shag at the chance of administering to the needs of genuine savages.'

'If you think so, you had better try and get the feast up,' I resignedly

 replied; 'but I do wish our savages were a little less filthy.'

Such was the origin of our Christmas feast to the blacks last year, of which I am about to tell you.

My husband, John MacKenzie, was the manager and part proprietor of a large sheep-station in the Murchison district of Western Australia, and sister Maggie was his favourite sister. A severe attack of pneumonia had left her so weak that the doctors advised a sea voyage to Australia, to recuperate her strength--a proposition which she hailed with delight, as it would give her the opportunity of seeing her brother in his West Australian home. My husband, of course, was delighted at the prospect of seeing her again, while I too welcomed the idea of meeting my Scottish sister-in-law, with whom I had much charming correspondence, but had never met face to face.

As the above conversation shows, my husband's chief care was to make his sister's visit bright and enjoyable--no easy task in the lonely back-blocks where our station was, and where the dreary loneliness and deadly monotony of the West Australian bush reaches its climax. Miles upon miles of uninteresting plains, covered with the usual gums and undergrowth, surrounded us on all sides; beautiful, indeed, in early spring, when the wealth of West Australian wild flowers--unsurpassed for loveliness by those of any other country--enriched the land, but at other times painfully unattractive and monotonous.

Except kangaroos, snakes, and lizards, animal life was a-wanting. Bird and insect life, too, was hardly to be seen, and owing to the absence of rivers and lakes, aquatic life was unknown.

The silent loneliness of the bush is so oppressive and depressing that men new to such conditions have gone mad under it when living alone, and others almost lose their power of intelligent speech.

Such were hardly the most cheerful surroundings for a young convalescent girl, and so I fully shared Jack's anxiety as to how to provide healthy excitement during his sister's stay.

Preparations for the blacks' Christmas feast were at once proceeded with. A camp of aboriginals living by a small lakelet eighteen miles off was visited, and the natives there were informed of a great feast that was to be given thirty days later, and were told to tell other blacks to come too, with their wives and piccaninnies.
 

A Magnificent Bribe

Orders were sent to the nearest town, fifty-three miles off, for six cases of oranges, a gross of gingerbeer, and all the dolls, penknives and tin trumpets in stock; also (for Jack got wildly extravagant over his project) for fifty cotton shirts, and as many pink dresses of the readymade kind that are sold in Australian stores. These all came about a fortnight before Christmas, and at the same time our expected visitor arrived.

She at once got wildly enthusiastic when my husband told her of his plan, and threw herself into the preparations with refreshing energy.

She and I, and the native servants we had, toiled early and late, working like galley-slaves making bread-stuffs for the feast. Knowing whom I had to provide for, I confined myself to making that Australian standby--damper, and simple cakes, but Maggie produced a wonderfully elaborate and rich bun for their delectation, which she called a 'Selkirk bannock,' and which I privately thought far too good for them.

Well, the day came. Such a Christmas as you can only see and feel in Australia; the sky cloudless, the atmosphere breezeless, the temperature one hundred and seven degrees in the shade. With it came the aboriginals in great number, accompanied, as they always are, by crowds of repulsive-looking mongrel dogs.

Maggie was greatly excited, and not a little indignant, at seeing many of the gins carrying their dogs in their arms, and letting their infants toddle along on trembling legs hardly strong enough to support their little bodies, and much astonished when, on her proposing to send all their dogs away, I told her that this would result in the failure of the intended feast, as they would sooner forsake their children than their mongrels, and if the dogs were driven away, every native would indignantly accompany them.

Maggie, with a sigh and a curious look on her face that told of the disillusioning of sundry preconceived English ideas regarding the noble savages, turned to look at Jack, and her lips soon twitched with merriment as she listened to him masterfully arranging the day's campaign.

Marshalling the blacks before him like a company of soldiers--the women, thanks to my prudent instructions, being more or less decently dressed, the men considerably less decently, and the younger children of both sexes being elegantly clad in Nature's undress uniform--Jack vigorously addressed his listeners thus: 'Big feast made ready for plenty black-fellow to-day, but black-fellow must make clean himself before feast.' (Grunts of disapprobation from the men, and a perfect babel of angry protestation from the women here interrupted the speaker, who proceeded, oblivious of the disapproval of his audience.) 'Black-fellow all come with me for washee; lubras and piccaninnies (_i.e._, women and children) all go with white women for washee.' (Continued grumbles of discontent.) 'Clean black-fellow,' continued Jack, 'get new shirtee, clean lubra new gowna.' Then, seeing that even this magnificent bribe failed to reconcile the natives to the idea of soap and water, Jack, to the amusement of Maggie and myself, settled matters by shouting out the ultimatum: 'No washee--no shirtee, no shirtee--no feastee,' and stalked away, followed submissively by the aboriginal lords of creation.

A Striking Picture

The men, indeed, and, in a lesser degree, the children, showed themselves amenable to reason that day, and were not wanting in gratitude; but in spite of Maggie's care and mine, the gins (the gentler sex) worthily deserved the expressive description: 'Manners none, customs beastly.'

They were repulsive and dirty in the extreme. They gloried in their dirt, and clung to it with a closer affection than they did to womanly modesty--this last virtue was unknown.

We, on civilising thoughts intent, had provided a number of large tubs and soap, and brushes galore for the Augean task, but though we got the women to the water, we were helpless to make them clean.

Their declaration of independence was out at once--'Is thy servant a dog that I should do this thing?' Wash and be clean! Why, it was contrary to all the time-honoured filthy habits of the noble self-respecting race of Australian gins, and 'they would have none of it.' At last, in despair, and largely humiliated at the way in which savage womanhood had worsted civilised, Maggie and I betook ourselves to the long tables where the feast was being spread, and waited the arrival of the leader of the other sex, whose success, evidenced by sounds coming from afar, made me seriously doubt my right to be called his 'better half.'

After a final appeal to my hard-hearted lord and master to be spared the indignity of the wash-tub, the native men had bowed to the inevitable.

Each man heroically lent himself to the task, and diligently helped his neighbours to reach the required standard of excellence.

Finally all save one stubborn aboriginal protestant emerged from the tub, like the immortal Tom Sawyer, 'a man and a brother.'

Well, the feast was a great success. The corned and tinned meat, oranges, tomatoes, cakes and gingerbeer provided were largely consumed. The eatables, indeed, met the approval of the savages, for, like Oliver Twist, they asked for 'more,' until we who served them got rather leg-weary, and began to doubt whether, when night came, we would be able to say with any heartiness we had had 'a merry Christmas.'

Clad in their clean shirts, and with faces shining with soap-polish, the men looked rather well, despite their repulsive and generally villainous features. But the women, wrinkled, filthy, quarrelsome and disgusting, they might have stood for incarnations of the witch-hags in _Macbeth_; and as we watched them guzzling down the food, and then turning their upper garments into impromptu bags to carry off what remained, it is hard to say whether the feeling of pity or disgust they raised was the

 stronger.

After the feast, Jack, for Maggie's entertainment, tried to get up the blacks to engage in a corroboree, and give an exhibition of boomerang and spear-throwing; but the inner man had been too largely satisfied, and they declined violent exertion, so the toys were distributed and our guests dismissed.

When she and I were dressing that evening for our own Christmas dinner, Maggie kept talking all the time of the strange experience she had passed through that day.

 'I'll never forget it,' she said. 'Savages are so different from our English ideas of them. Did you notice the dogs? I counted nineteen go off with the first native that left. And the women! Weren't they horrors? I don't think I'll ever feel pride in my sex again. But above all, I'll never forget the way in which Jack drove from the table that native who hadn't a clean shirt on. It was a picture of Christ's parable of the 'Marriage Feast,'' she added softly.

Before I could reply the gong, strengthened by Jack's imperative 'Hurry up, I'm starving,' summoned us to dinner.