Natives

Fine and rare lithograph of two New South Wales aborigines, from the first issue of Capt. Robert Westmacott’s, ‘Views of Australia’. 

Westmacotts letterpress description:

The Aboriginal women are small in stature, illmade, and very plain, seldom having a robust appearance, and not so cleanly as the men. Their life is one of hardship, doing all the drudgery and hard work, the men seldom assisting. These people are never stationary; all the camp equipage and children are carried by the women, the men condescending to carry only their weapons of war, the chase, or fishing. Should the gin, or wife, have a child before the last is able to follow, the poor little wretch, unless some more humane than father or mother protects it, is put to death. Upon arrival at the ground for encampment, the women erect the gumoyas, or huts, light the fires, fetch water, and cook what they may have for the evening repast. Their daily wanderings are over at sunset. No black fellow ventures abroad after dark, as they have an idea that evil spirits then roam about and afflict them with misfortune and disease.