Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land, 1830-1840 - Page 20
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[Page 20]
persuade them to use properly made paddles they resorted to some clumsy contrived sticks, and would laugh at any one who admired attempted to admire what they considered an innovation. The language of the natives of V.D. Land possessed no affinity to any known tribe of New Holland and what is still more singular, the language of the natives of the Western Coast did not harmonize with that of the tribes on the Eastern, & the interior. # This difference was, I believe, first noticed when a woman of the Cape Grim tribe came to reside at Circular Head, the principal settlement of the Van Diemen's Land Company. A boat happened to come round to the Establishment with a native woman from some other part of the coast, and the two women could not understand each other; they were, however, very friendly together, and seemed expert in making signs. The poor young woman from Cape Grim had several narrow escapes. She cohabited with some one of the the boats' crew, which circumstance made her obnoxious to the tribe to which she belonged. She was closely watched, and one day when hunting about ten miles from the settlement, she was attacked by some of her own people, who wounded her in several places, and planted a spear in her neck, so that is was next to a miracle that she escaped.
[margin note# : which the tribe of the South had a language their own.]