abhorrent to many of them;[1] and it is hard to believe that even in a lower state the male would not have had the same feeling of affection for his mate and an equal jealousy of love as we see amongst the Aborigines now.
Exogamy exists throughout the greater part of Australia probably, but there is little or nothing to show whether or not it existed, or, if it was a law, how it operated amongst the Aborigines in Victoria. We must seek for information amongst those whose habits have not been much affected by the intrusion of whites.
Something, however, is known.
Mr. Bulmer says—"The blacks of the Murray are divided into two classes, the Mak-quarra or eagle, and the Kil-parra or crow. If the man be Mak-quarra, the woman must be Kil-parra. A Mak-quarra could not marry a Mak-quarra nor a Kil-parra a Kil-parra. The children take their caste from the mother, and not from the father. The Murray blacks never deviate from this rule. A man would as soon marry his sister as a woman of the caste to which he belongs. He calls a woman of the same caste Wurtoa (sister)." Thirty years ago this custom was investigated by Grey in South Australia. "The natives," he says, "are divided into certain great families, all the members of which bear the same names, as a family or second name. The principal branches of these families, so far as I have been able to ascertain, are the Ballaroke, Tdondarup, Ngotak, Nagarnook, Nogonyuk, Mongalung, Narrangur."[2] The
- ↑ This I believe is strictly true as regards the Aborigines generally; but since it was written I have received information from a settler well acquainted with the Aborigines of the northern and central parts of Australia, which suggests that amongst some tribes there are women wholly given up to common lewdness. He tells me that a woman has been known to travel alone from Cooper's Creek eastwards for a distance of 500 miles solely for the purpose of profiting by prostitution. On reaching a camp of blacks, she would make a small fire, so as to raise a column of smoke. This signal would bring to her men and boys, and in return for favors conferred she would receive pieces of tobacco, a blanket, a rug, or the like. These would again be bartered away for goods that could be easily carried; and after the district was exhausted, she would return to her tribe with her gains.
He says, further, that a man is considered inhospitable—a bad host—who will not lend his lubra to a guest.
I cannot help thinking that these practices are modern—that they have been acquired since the Aborigines have been brought in contact with the lower class of whites. They are altogether irreconcilable with the penal laws in force in former times amongst the natives of Victoria. Yet the practices are undoubtedly common in many parts of Australia; and it is right to use the utmost caution in dealing with facts of this kind. Isolated cases of criminal intercourse—under strong temptation—are altogether different from prostitution as said to be practised at this day by the natives of Cooper's Creek and the Paroo; but these natives have other customs which are not known to the Aborigines of the southern parts of Australia. For instance, Mr. Gason says that amongst the Dieyerie each married woman is permitted a paramour.
See also Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia, by Edward John Eyre, 1845, vol. II., pp. 319-20.
- ↑ Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery. Grey, vol. II., pp. 225-6.
iron. Blackstone ascribes the continuance of the practice of wife-beating among the lower classes, long after it had gone out of fashion with the upper, to the affection of the common people for the old common law."
Cruelty to wives—and the infliction of punishment according to law or custom must have involved cruelty—is not therefore a practice restricted to savage nations. According to Mr. Jeaffreson—the author of the work here referred to—a slipper was held to be a proper instrument of correction. Has this any connection with the throwing of the shoe when the bride and bridegroom depart for the honeymoon? Nearly all our customs are derived from remote ancestors.
