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Neither at Cape York, nor in any of the Islands of Torres Strait, so far as I am aware, do the aborigines appear to have formed an idea of the existence of a Supreme Being; the absence of this belief may appear questionable, but my informant, Giaom, spoke quite decidedly on this point, having frequently made it the subject of conversation with the Kowrarega blacks.
A few words procured at Cape York and Port Lihou are given in the Voyage of the Fly, and most of those which I have been able to identify belong to the language spoken by the Kowrarega tribe, inhabiting the Prince of Wales Islands, and frequently visiting Cape York. For the materials composing the present Kowrarega Vocabulary, I am almost entirely indebted to Mrs. Thomson.
Another point connected with the comparative philology of Australia is the peculiarity of its phonetic system. The sounds of f and s are frequently wanting. Hence, the presence of either of them in one dialect has been considered as evidence of a wide ethnological difference. Upon this point in the case of s the remarks on the sound systems of the Kowrarega and Gudang are important.
A peculiar form of head, which both the Kowrarega and Gudang blacks consider as the beau ideal of beauty, is produced by artificial compression during infancy.
Thus the English word breast = susu, Kowrarega; tyu-tyu, Gudang, and the English outrigger float = sarima, Kowrarega; charima, Gudang, which of these two forms is the older? Probably the Gudang, or the form in ty. If so, the series of changes is remarkable, and by attending to it we may see how sounds previously non-existent may become evolved. Thus let the original form for breast be tutu.
Ngi-pel is probably thou + pair; a priori this is a likely way of forming a dual. As to the reasons a posteriori they are not to be drawn wholly from the Kowrarega tongue itself. Here the word for two is not pel but quassur. But let us look further.
This petticoat, varying only in the materials from which it is made, is in general use among the females of all the Torres Strait tribes except the Kowrarega, and much labour is often expended upon its construction.
The phenomenon, then, of the evolution of new simple sounds should caution us against over-valuing phonetic differences. So should such facts as that of the closely allied dialects of the Gudang and Kowrarega differing from each other by the absence or presence of so important a sound as that of s.
Example: apa pirung = soft ground becomes ap'irung. In the way of comparative philology the most important part of the Grammar of the Australian languages is, generally, the Pronoun. That of the Kowrarega language will, therefore, be the first point investigated.
Nevertheless, if we bear in mind the Greek forms Thalassa and Thalatta, we may fairly suppose that the Kowrarega word for two, or quassur, is the same word with the Head of Australian Bight kootera, the Parnkalla kuttara, and the Western Australian kardura, having the same meaning.
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