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These last barter away to their northern neighbours spears, throwing-sticks, and mother-of-pearl shells for bows, arrows, bamboo pipes, and knives, and small shell ornaments called dibi-dibi. They have friendly relations with the other islanders of Torres Strait, but are at enmity with all the mainland tribes except the Gudang.
The infant is laid upon a small soft mat which the mother has taken care to prepare beforehand, and which is used for no other purpose. The life of a married woman among the Kowrarega and Gudang blacks is a hard one. She has to procure nearly all the food for herself and husband, except during the turtling season, and on other occasions when the men are astir.
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.
Plural, common : tana = they, them. In the two first of these forms the du is no part of the root, but an affix, since the Gudang gives us the simpler forms nue and na. Pale, the dual form, occurs in the Western Australian, the New South Wales, the South Australian, and the Parnkalla as foIlows: boola, bulo-ara, purl-a, pudlanbi = they two. Singular : ngi-du = thou, thee.
Thomson were subsequently verified either by herself or by our Kowrarega visitors. The Gudang Vocabulary was formed at Cape York, and the chief contributor to it was the black named Paida, mentioned above, to whom I latterly was able to make myself tolerably well understood upon most subjects, through the medium of the Kowrarega language, which he knew thoroughly.
They said in our 'all he was a hartis. I can 'ardly think that. Why, there used to be a hartis come to our club, and painted two or three of my 'osses, and my old woman too. Lackey. There's hartises and hartises, Backystopper. Why, there's some on 'em comes here with more stars on their coats than Dukes has got. Have you never 'eard of Mossyer Verny, or Mossyer Gudang? Backystopper.
The "Gudang" tribe, claiming the land from Cape York to Fly Point, at the entrance of Albany Pass, is small in numbers, having, I fancy, been seriously thinned by their neighbours, the "Kororegas," from the Prince of Wales' Island, in Torres' Straits, who frequently come down upon them. Paida, Mr. The "Goomkoding" tribe, who live on the north-western shore, I have seen little of.
The tu, of course, is non-radical, the Gudang form being ngai. Nga, expressive of the first person, is as common as ngi, equivalent to the second. Thus, nga-nya, nga-toa, nga-i, nga-pe = I, me, in the Western Australian, New South Wales, Parnkalla, and Encounter Bay dialects. It has already been said that, in many languages, the pronoun of the third person is, in origin, a demonstrative.
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.
They and the "Gudang" seem to hold most communication with the islanders of 'Torres' Straits, the intermixture of the races being evident. "Kororega" words are used by both these tribes, and the bow and arrow are sometimes seen among them, having been procured from the island. The "Yadaigan" tribe inhabit the south side of Newcastle Bay and the Kennedy River; the "Undooyamo," the north side.
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