able to prevent the young and strong men from enjoying the fruits of their own exertions. Unlike the Cherokees, the Flatheads of Oregon, and the medicine-men of the Rio de la Plata, they dreamed their dreams after fully satisfying their appetites, and no doubt would have regarded a suggestion to refrain for even a short time from eating and drinking as an impertinence to be resented by the use of the strongest "charms" in their possession.
As much information as could be obtained is given relative to forbidden food. The laws administered by the old men were numerous. Women might not eat of the flesh of certain animals, and certain kinds of food were prohibited to young men. These customs—the origin of which is unknown, and the reasons for following them not to be discovered—are, however, not confined to the savages of Australia. They are known in Africa; but the old men of the tribes in Australia seem to have enlarged, for their own advantage, a system that probably originally grew out of the superstitition that evil would befall him who should eat the flesh of the animal that is the totem of his tribe. The most obvious effect of the operation of these curious laws was certainly not injurious to the interests of the people. It enabled the old men who were not equal to the fatigues incident to the hunting of the larger game to remain in comfort in their camps, where they employed their time in all those arts which they had perfected by experience. They made nets, spears, shields, and boomerangs; and taught the boys the use of weapons and implements. They maintained order when the warriors were absent, and they took care to require that all the observances proper to the occasion of the arrival of a messenger or a visitor were duly maintained.
If, on the other hand, the old men had had to depend on their own unassisted exertions for a supply of animal food, they would have had no leisure for such pursuits; the character of the weapons and tools would have deteriorated, and the knowledge of some arts would have been lost.
The custom of youths arranging, and maintaining through life, a kind of joint ownership in certain sorts of food, so that, for instance, when a kangaroo was killed, each, according to right, would receive a particular portion, is, it is believed, peculiar to the Australian people. How it originated, or for what purpose it was continued, will probably never be known. Indeed the natives can give no information respecting their customs and laws.
Their aversion to the fat of swine is well known, and it can scarcely have arisen from the circumstance that swiue are unclean feeders, and liable to certain disorders. It rests probably on the influence exercised over their minds by the strange superstitions that seem inseparable from the savage state. Their refusal to eat pork is perhaps due to the fear that they might in doing so violate a law. It is not lawful for a young man to eat the fat of the emu until a certain ceremony has been performed; and when they see the fat of an animal strange to them, it may be supposed that they view it with doubt and fear.
The laws relating to food made by the natives stand in curious contrast to those mentioned in Deuteronomy (chap. xiv.). The blacks interdict to women and young men such of the food as they consider good; and there are no prohibitions against eating creatures that are generally regarded by civilized races
