Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land, 1830-1840 - Page 109
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[Page 109]
it would appear from the foraging that the Aborigines must entertain some faint notions of a future state, and that connected with some sort of warfare. Many ancient nations, as I have before observed, used to deposit in the grave, the with the a departed warrior, his arms and other trophies. At the time I speak of the words dead and a sleep were synonimous with the black natives of Van Diemens' Land. Should however my surmise by be incorrect, and unfounded, respecting a faint notions of a future state, than I cannot help conjecturing that the practice of depositing war implements with the dead must have been derived from the primitive stock of ancestors, whoever and wherever they may have been, and furnishes me with one more argument in support of the opinion or doctrine that all mankind are of the same origin, although widely different in complexion colour and appearances.