Beginning with Curr, it must be conceded that he is one of the leading
authorities on Australia, the author of a four-volume treatise on that
country and its natives. Yet his testimony on the point in question
happens to be as worthless as that of the most hasty globe-trotter,
partly because he had evidently paid little attention to it, and
partly also, I fancy, because of the fatal tendency of men of science
to blunder as soon as they touch the domain of esthetics. What he
really wrote (II., 275) is that Chatfield had informed him that scars
were made by the natives on the right thigh "for the purpose of
denoting the particular class to which they belong." This Curr doubts,
"without further evidence," because it would conflict with the custom
prevalent throughout the continent, "as far as known, which is to make
these marks for ornament only." Now this is a pure assumption of
Curr's, based on a preconceived notion, and contradicted by the
specific evidence of a number of explorers who, as even Grosse is
obliged to admit (75), "unanimously account for a part at least of the
scars as tribal marks."[100]
If so eminent an authority as Curr can err so grievously, it is
obvious that the testimony of other writers and casual observers must
be accepted with extreme caution. Europeans and Americans are so
accustomed to regard personal decorations as attempts to beautify the
appearance that when they see them in savages there is a natural
disposition to attribute them to the same motive.
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