original cover of Among Cannibals, 1889
Among Cannibals: An Account of Four Years' Travels in Australia and of Camp Life with the Aborigines of Queensland by Carl Lumholtz, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1889, first American edition

Among Cannibals: An Account of Four Years' Travels in Australia and of Camp Life with the Aborigines of Queensland, Carl Lumholtz, 1889

Author's Preface

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

Introductory - Voyage to Australia - Arrival at Adelaide - Description of the city - Melbourne, the Queen of the South - Working men - The highest trees in the world - Two of the most common mammals in Australia

CHAPTER 2

Sydney harbour - Jealousy between Sydney and Melbourne - The Blue Mountains - Brisbane and Rockhampton - First evening in tropical Australia - Gracemere station - Animal and plant life - Vine-scrubs - Excursion into the neighbouring districts - A Norseman who feels cold in Australia

CHAPTER 3

Journey to Western Queensland - Camping out - Damper (Australian bread) - The song of the magpie - Australian scrubs - Hunting the kangaroo - Devotion of parrots - Station life - Lonely shepherds - Migration of rats - Native justice - Australian fleas - Native mounted police - A remarkable flint instrument - The boomerang

CHAPTER 4

Struggle between blacks and whites - 116° Fahrenheit - Cool nights - Troubles - Bush-life - How the bushman spends his money - Inundations - Back again to Gracemere - A greedy snake - Courtship in the bush

CHAPTER 5

Journey to Northern Queensland - Mackay sugar - Employment of South Sea Islanders - Townsville - A rough northern man - Sugar district on Lower Herbert - Visit to a successful Scandinavian - Blacks near Gardiner's farm - Nolla nolla - Spring - Arrival at Herbert Vale

CHAPTER 6

Headquarters at Herbert Vale - Civilised blacks - Domestic life - Nelly the cook - Cats - Swimming in fat - My bill of fare - Killing the bullock - Strong stomachs and bad fare

CHAPTER 7

Kamin (implement for climbing) - On the top of the gum-trees - Hunting the wallaby - The spear of the natives - Bird life in the open country - Jungle hens - Cassowary

CHAPTER 8

Pleasant companions - Two new mammals - Large scrubs in the Coast Mountains - The lawyer-palm - "Never have a black-fellow behind you" - I decide to live with the blacks - Great expectations - My outfit - Tobacco is money - The baby of the gun

CHAPTER 9

My first expedition with the blacks - A night in the forest - Fear of evil spirits - Morning toilet - Maja yarri - Borboby - The "lists" of blacks - Warriors in full dress - Swords and shields - Fights - The rights of black women - Abduction of women

CHAPTER 10

The appearance of the aborigines in the different parts of the continent - My pack-horse in danger - Tracks of the boongary (tree-kangaroo) - Bower-birds - The blacks in rainy weather - Making fire in the scrubs - A messenger from the civilised world - The relations of the various tribes - Tattooing

CHAPTER 11

Respect for right of property - New country - My camp - Mountain ascent - Tree ferns - A dangerous nettle - A night in a cavern - Art among the blacks - Edible larvae - Omelette aux coleopteres - Music of the blacks - Impudent begging

CHAPTER 12

The position of women among the blacks - The husband the hunter, and the woman the provider of the family - Black female slaves - "Marking" the wives - A twelve-year-old wife - Considerate husbands - Wives an inheritance - Deserted by my followers - Reasoning power of the blacks - Darkness and rain

CHAPTER 13

Mongan, a new mammal - For my collection or to feed the blacks? - Natives do not eat raw meat - A young yarri - A meteorite - Fear of attacks - Cannibals on the war-path - The relations between the tribes

CHAPTER 14

Dingo a member of the family - A black who does not smoke - Hunting the flying-squirrel - Diseases among the natives - Their remedies - A splendid offer - Unpleasant companions - Trouble in getting dogs

CHAPTER 15

Blacks on the track - A foreign tribe - Native baskets - Two black boys - Bringing up of the children - Pseudochirus lemuroides with its young - The effect of a shot - A native swell - Relationship among the blacks - Their old women

CHAPTER 16

Wild landscape on the Upper Herbert - Kvingan, the devil of the blacks - A fatal eel - Mourning dress - Flight of the blacks - A compromise - Christmas Eve - Lonely - Christmas fare - A "faithful" relative - A welcome wallaby

CHAPTER 17

A wedding - Love among the Australian natives - My first meeting with Yokkai - Big eaters - An accident - Left alone with Yokkai - A difficult descent - Return to Herbert Vale - A new beetle - Friends of the animals

CHAPTER 18

Native politeness - How a native uses a newspaper - "Fat" living - Painful joy - Boongary, boongary - Veracity of the natives - A short joy - A perfect cure - An offer of marriage - Refusal

CHAPTER 19

A festival dance of the blacks - Their orchestra - A plain table - Yokkai wants to become "a white man" - Yokkai's confession - A dangerous situation - A family drama

CHAPTER 20

Arrival of the native police - The murderer caught - Examination - Jimmy is taken to Cardwell - Flight of the prisoner - The officer of the law - Expedition to the Valley of Lagoons - A mother eats her own child - My authority receives a shock

CHAPTER 21

The rainy season - How the evenings are spent - Hardy children - Mangola- Maggi's revenge - The crania of the Australians - The expedition to Cardwell - Dalrymple Gap - A scandalous murder - Entry into Cardwell - Yokkai as cook - "Balnglan's" death - Tobacco cures sorrow

CHAPTER 22

Unpleasantnesses at Herbert Vale - New expeditions - Hunting human flesh - Cannibalism - Human flesh is the greatest delicacy of the Australian blacks - Superstitions in connection with the eating of human flesh - The taste of the cannibals - Cannibalism in Burma

CHAPTER 23

The burial of the blacks - Black mummies - Sorcerers or wizards - Myths and legends - The doctrine of the Trinity in New South Wales - The belief in a future life among the blacks

CHAPTER 24

My life in danger - Morbora's ingratitude - Another danger - My position grows more precarious - The black man's fondness for imitating

CHAPTER 25

Winter in Northern Queensland - Snakes as food - Hunting snakes - An unexpected guest at night - Yokkai's first dress- Norway's "mountains of food " - Departure from Herbert Vale - Farewell to the world of the blacks

CHAPTER 26

Message sticks - The common origin of the dialects - Remarkably complicated grammar - The language on Herbert river - Comparison of a few dialects

CHAPTER 27

Frozen meat Again in Gracemere - Australian scenery - In a carriole - Hunting the dugong - Cosmopolitan quarters for the night - Cure for nervous diseases - Poisonous rabbits- Marry only a person with good teeth - Bush girls - Mount Morgan

CHAPTER 28

A family of zoologists - Flesh-eating kangaroos - How the ant-eater propagates - Civilised natives - Weapons and implements - Civilisation and demoralisation

CHAPTER 29

Religion - Blacks in the service of the white men - Fickle minds - Settlers and natives on the borders of civilisation - Morality - A life and death struggle - The cruelty of the whites - Future prospects of the Australian natives

APPENDIX

I. An Outline of Australian History - The Condition before the European Discovery History of the Discovery History of the Colonies . n. Geology . in. Flora . . . IV. Fauna .

INDEX

Next: Chapter 1

Previous: Author's Preface

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