grandmothers ate of each other." The tradition was that the rite was ordained in order to prevent inordinate grief at the death of relations.
The "South Australian Folk-Lore" (Taplin), published by the Government (1879), declared that the Narrinyerri tribes, which occupied the territory around Lake Alexandrina (extending from Cape Jervis to Lacepede Bay), shrank with horror from cannibalism of any kind. The Narrinyerri were in some respects esteemed as having a more highly-formed social polity than other tribes in the colony. They are distinctly affirmed to have believed in a future state, and in a ruling Deity. They had numerous totems (derived, as usual in Australia, from names of animals), and marriages could only take place amongst them in strict compliance with defined law or custom, which prescribed the classes within which marriages were allowable. Contrary to the ordinary custom of the continent, the child was of the father's class. This exception occurred also amongst the Kurnai tribes, which occupied Gipps' Land, in Victoria, as well as in some other parts of the continent. The Kurnai tribes were made the subject of elaborate comment by Mr. A. W. Howitt[1] in 1880. He became acquainted with them long after seizure of their country by Europeans had annihilated their organization, and when remnants of them were gathered at two mission stations maintained by aid from the government, and by the zeal of missionaries. The elder members doubtless retained knowledge of their smitten institutions,[2] but reverence for what was once supreme law is impaired by its
- ↑ "Kamilaroi and Kurnai" (Melbourne, 1880), by L. Fison and A. W. Howitt, with Introduction by Dr. Lewis H. Morgan, of America.
- ↑ An instance was furnished by the able and excellent Moravian, Rev. F. A. Hagenauer, who presided over the Presbyterian mission, Kamahyuck in Gipps' Land, where waifs from various tribes were assembled. The daughter of an old man was selected on the station to marry a young man to whom, by Australian law, she ought not to be married. The old man told Mr. Hagenauer: "You may marry them like the white people cannot, because it is against my law. I will come back when they are married." He absented himself on the day of the ceremony, and on his return proved by his friendly demeanour to his forbidden son-in-law that no personal dislike actuated him in clinging to the doomed law of his forefathers. (Evidence before Royal Commission in Victoria, 1877.) One man sadly remarked to the author that perhaps the decay of the race was due to its modern disobedience to its ancient marriage laws.
