The life of the tribe as a whole seemed to be well regulated. Custom, with the old men as its exponents, was the only law. Where there were few old men, each individual, within limits, could do as he pleased.
Howitt writes of the tribes studied by hirn that custom regulated the placing of huts in the camp, and even the proper position of individuals within the huts. In the Kaiabara tribe single men and women lived on opposite sides of the camp. The old women kept an ever watchful eye upon the young people to prevent improprieties. In another tribe the women could not come to the camp by the same path as the men, a violation of the rule being punishable by death. The law of custom thus controlled almost every phase of the life of the individual, including many individual matters as well as conduct toward others; the intercourse of the sexes is or was most definitely limited and regulated; the women who were eligible to each man in marriage were also rigidly determined by custom, as well as the proprieties of conduct toward the wife's family. Reference has already been made to the severe restrictions entailed by the initiation and other ceremonies, and also to the minute regulations regarding the choice of food. In all cases these customs were enforced by severe penalties. In some tribes the local group or camp united to punish any member who was guilty of overstepping these bounds as well as complicity in more serious crimes such as incest, murder or the promiscuous use of fighting implements within the camp. Most customs were, however, probably obeyed from habit, the native being educated from infancy in the belief that infraction of custom would produce many evils such as premature grayness, pestilence and even cosmic catastrophes. In fact, among the tribes observed by Howitt authority was generally impersonal, though not always, for the headmen were often men of great personal ability and were greatly feared and respected by the rest of the tribe or group (Howitt, pp. 296-300).
Questions of right and wrong for the Australians seem to have centered chiefly about food restrictions, secrets relating to the tribal ceremonies, the sacred objects and wives. Moral precepts probably originated in association with the purely selfish idea of the older men to keep all the best things for themselves.[1] In this way, at least, may be explained many of the regulations regarding what the younger men might eat. So also as to marriage, for aside from restrictions as to totem and class into which a man might marry, all the younger women were reserved by the old men, the less desirable ones, alone, being available to the young men. But, granting the selfish character of many of the rules, there was still a certain amount of morality which transcended anything of this sort. The old men in their leisure "instructed the younger ones in the laws of the tribe, impressing on
- ↑ Spencer and Gillen, "Native Tribes," etc., p. 48.
