3-077-987 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches at an Australian Mission Station - by Mr. A. J. Vogan, 1890. '1. Shooting pelicans on Lake Killalpininna. 2. The Government Well, near Lake Tidnacoordooninna. 3. Dead Pelican. 4. Boys of Mission Station playing "Kokoo". 5. Natives Fishing on Lake Killalpininna. 6. Government House, Residence of the Chief Missionary. 7 Old Part of Mission Station...[The] station is seldom visited...the condition of the fast-disappearing aboriginal inhabitants generally voted distasteful and tiresome by English colonists. Our correspondent...found it an opportunity of learning something of the possibility of improving the condition of the much-abused native race...Mr. Vogan felt it almost startling to see the happy, intelligent, in some cases handsome faces of the blacks...One gets so accustomed to look upon the natives as mere animals...that to find people of that race able to converse, to argue, and to work just as well as a superior white man was quite a revelation... The natives have few games; but one of these, called "Kokoo," they are very fond of...The game consists of flinging a wooden club-pointed dart...Pelicans..haunt the lakes near the station, and are horribly tame. The pelican, especially, attracts the aim of the rarely passing sportsman'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.