marriage taboos. We have already seen that as a rule the old men
appropriate the young girls, the younger men not being allowed to
marry till they are twenty-five or thirty, and even then being
compelled to take an old man's cast-off wife of thirty-five or forty
summers, "It is usual," says Curr (I., 110),

"to see old men with mere girls as wives, and men in the
prime of life married to widows.... Women have very
frequently two husbands during their life-time, the first
older and the second younger than themselves.... There are
always many bachelors in every tribe."[176]

Not to speak of love, this arrangement makes it difficult even for
animal passion to manifest itself except in an adulterous or
illegitimate manner.

"At present," we learn from Spencer and Gillen (104, 558),

"by far the most common method of getting a wife is by means
of an arrangement made between brothers or fathers of the
respective men and women whereby a particular woman is
assigned to a particular man."

This most usual method of getting a wife is also the most
extraordinary. Suppose one man has a son, another a daughter,
generally both of tender age. Now it would be bad enough to betroth
these two without their consent and before they are old enough to have
any real choice. But the Australian way is infinitely worse. It is
arranged that the girl in the case shall be, by and by, not the boy's
wife, but his mother-in-law; that is, the boy is to wed her daughter.
In other words, he must wait not only till she is old enough to marry
but till her daughter is old enough to marry! And this is "by far the
most common method"!


MARRIAGE TABOOS AND "INCEST."

The marriage taboos are no less artificial, absurd, and fatal to free
choice and love. An Australian is not only forbidden to marry a girl
who is closely related to him by blood--sometimes the prohibition
extends to first, second, and even third cousins--but he must not
think of such a thing as marrying a woman having his family name or
belonging to certain tribes or clans--his own, his mother's or
grandmother's, his neighbor's, or one speaking his dialect, etc. The
result is more disastrous than one unfamiliar with Australian
relationships would imagine; for these relationships are so
complicated that to unravel them takes, in the words of Howitt (59),
"a patience compared with which that of Job is furious irritability."

These prohibitions are not to be trifled with. They extend even to war
captives. If a couple disregard them and elope, they are followed by
the indignant relatives in hot pursuit and, if taken, severely
punished, perhaps even put to death. (Howitt, 300, 66.) Of the
Kamilaroi the same writer says:

"Should a man persist in keeping a woman who is denied to
him by their laws, the penalty is that he should be driven
out from the society of his friends and quite ignored. If
that does not cure his fondness for the woman, his male
relatives follow him and kill him, as a disgrace to their
tribe, and the female relatives of the woman kill her for
the same reason."

It is a mystery to anthropologists how these marriage taboos, these
notions of real or fancied incest, could have ever arisen. Curr
(I.,236) remarks pointedly that

"most persons who have any practical knowledge of our
savages will, I think, bear me out when I assert that,
whatever their objections to consanguineous marriages may
be, they have no more idea of the advantages of this or that
sort of breeding, or of any laws of Nature bearing on the
question, than they have of differential calculus."[177]

Whatever may have been the origin of these prohibitions, it is obvious
that, as I have said, they acted as obstacles to love; and what is
more, in many cases they seem to have impeded legitimate marriage
only, without interfering with licentious indulgence. Roth (67) cites
O'Donnell to the effect that with the Kunandaburi tribe the _jus
primae noctis_ is allowed all the men present at the camp without
regard to class or kin. He also cites Beveridge, who had lived
twenty-three years in contact with the Riverina tribes and who assured
him that, apart from marrying, there was no restriction on
intercourse. In his book on South Australia J.D. Wood says (403):

"The fact that marriage does not take place between
members of the same tribe, or is forbidden amongst
them, does not at all include the idea that chastity is
observed within the same limits."

Brough Smyth (II., 92) refers to the fact that secret violations of
the rule against fornication within the forbidden classes were not
punished. Bonwick (62) cites the Rev. C. Wilhelmi on the Port Lincoln
customs:

"There are no instances of two Karraris or two Matteris
having been married together; and yet connections of a
less virtuous character, which take place between
members of the same caste, do not appear to be
considered incestuous."

Similar testimony is adduced by Waitz-Gerland (VI., 776), and others.


AFFECTION FOR WOMEN AND DOGS

There is a strange class of men who always stand with a brush in hand
ready to whitewash any degraded creature, be he the devil himself. For
want of a better name they are called sentimentalists, and they are
among men what the morbid females who bring bouquets and sympathy to
fiendish murderers are among women. The Australian, unutterably
degraded, particularly in his sexual relations, as the foregoing pages
show him to be, has had his champions of the type of the "fearless"
Stephens. There is another class of writers who create confusion by
their reckless use of words. Thus the Rev. G. Taplin asserts (12) that
he has "known as well-matched and loving couples amongst the
aborigines" as he has amongst Europeans. What does he mean by loving
couples? What, in his opinion, are the symptoms of affection? With
amusing naïveté he reveals his ideas on the subject in a passage (11)
which he quotes approvingly from H.E.A. Meyer to the effect that if a
young bride pleases her husband, "he _shows his affection_ by
frequently rubbing her with grease to improve her personal appearance,
and with the idea that it will make her grow rapidly and become fat."
If such selfish love of obesity for sensual purposes merits the name
of affection, I cheerfully grant that Australians are capable of
affection to an unlimited degree. Taplin, furthermore, admits that
"as wives got old, they were often cast off by their husbands, or
given to young men in exchange for their sisters or other relations at
their disposal" (XXXI.); and again (121):

"From childhood to old age the gratification of
appetite and passion is the sole purpose of life to the
savage. He seeks to extract the utmost sweetness from
mere animal pleasures, and consequently his nature
becomes embruted."

Taplin does not mention a single act of conjugal devotion or
self-sacrifice, such as constitutes the sole criterion of affection.
Nor in the hundreds of books and articles on Australia that I have
read have I come across a single instance of this kind. On the subject
of the cruel treatment of women all the observers are eloquent; had
they seen any altruistic actions, would they have failed to make a
record of them?

The Australian's attachment to his wife is evidently a good deal like
his love of his dog. Gason (259) tells us that the dogs, of which
every camp has from six to twenty, are generally a mangy lot, but

"the natives are very fond of them.... If a white man wants
to offend a native let him beat his dog. I have seen women
crying over a dog, when bitten by snakes, as if over their
own children."

The dogs are very useful to them, helping them to find snakes, rats,
and other animals for food. Yet, when mealtime comes, "the dog,
notwithstanding its services and their _affection_ for it, _fares very
badly_, receiving nothing but the bones." "Hence the dog is always in
very low condition."

Another writer[178] with a better developed sense of humor, says that
"It may be doubted whether the man does not value his dog, when alive,
quite as much as he does his woman, and think of both quite as often
and lovingly after he has eaten them."

As for the women, they are little better than the men. What Mitchell
says of them (I., 307) is characteristic. After a fight, he says, the
women

"do not always follow their fugitive husbands from the
field, but frequently go over, as a matter of course,
to the victors, even with young children on their
backs; and thus it was, probably, that after we had
made the lower tribes sensible of our superiority, that
the three girls followed our party, beseeching us to
take them with us."

The following from Grey (II., 230) gives us an idea of wifely
affection and fidelity: "The women have generally some favorite
amongst the young men, always looking forward to be his wife at the
death of her husband." How utterly beyond the Australian horizon was
the idea of common decency, not to speak of such a holy thing as
affection, is revealed by a cruel custom described by Howitt (344):

"The Kurnai and the Brajerak were not intermarrying
tribes, unless by capture, and in this case each man
took the woman whose husband he had been the first to
spear."

It would of course be absurd to suppose the widows in such cases
capable of suffering as our women would under such circumstances. They
are quite as callous and cruel as the men. Evidence is given in the
Jackman book (149) that, like Indian women, they torture prisoners of
war, breaking toes, fingers, and arms, digging out the eyes and
filling the sockets with hot sand, etc.

"Husbands rarely show much affection for their wives," wrote Eyre
(II., 214).

"After a long absence I have seen natives, upon their
return, go to their camp, exhibiting the most stoical
indifference, never taking the least notice of their
wives."

Elsewhere (321) he says, with reference to the fact that marriage is
not regarded as any pledge of chastity, which is not recognized as a
virtue: "But little real affection consequently exists between
husbands and wives, and younger men value a wife principally for her
services as a slave." And in a Latin footnote, in which he describes
the licentious customs of promiscuous intercourse and the harsh
treatment of women, he adds (320), "It is easy to understand that
there can hardly be much love among husbands and wives." He also gives
this particular instance of conjugal indifference and cruelty. In 1842
the wife of a native in Adelaide, a girl of about eighteen, was
confined and recovered slowly. Before she was well the tribe removed
from the locality. The husband preferred accompanying them, and left
his wife to die unattended. William Jackman, the Englishman who lived
seventeen months as a captive among the natives, says (118) that
"wife-killing, among the aborigines of Australia, is frequent and
elicits neither surprise nor any sort of animadversion." By way of
illustrating this remark he relates how, one day, he returned with a
native from an unsuccessful hunt. The native's twelve-year-old wife
had caught an opossum, roasted it, and, impelled by hunger, had begun
to eat it instead of saving it for her master--an atrocious crime. For
fifteen minutes the husband sat in silent rage which his features
betrayed. Presently he jumped up with the air of a demon,

"scooped his two hands full of embers and burning sand,
and flung the whole into the face and bosom of the
naked object of his vengeance; for I must repeat that
none of the natives wear any clothing, and that she was
sitting there as nude as when she was born. The devil
of his nature thus fairly aroused, he sprang for his
spear. It transfixed his frantic but irresisting
victim. She fell dead.... Save by the women of the
tribe, the affair was scarcely noticed."


A HORRIBLE CUSTOM

Suppose this young wife had saved the opossum for her husband. He
would then have eaten it and, in accordance with their universal
custom, have thrown her the bones to share with the dog. After that he
might have rubbed her with grease and indulged in sensual caresses.
Would that have proved his capacity for affection? Would you call a
mother affectionate who fondled her child, but allowed it to starve
while she gratified her own appetite? The only sure test of affection
lies in disinterested actions of self-sacrifice; and even actions may
sometimes mislead us. Thus several authors have been led into absurdly
erroneous conclusions by a horrible custom prevalent among the
natives, and thus described by Curr (I., 89):

"In some cases a woman is obliged by custom to roll up
the remains of her deceased child in a variety of rags,
making them into a package, which she carries about
with her for several months, and at length buries. On
it she lays her head at night, and the odor is so
horrible that it pervades the whole camp, and not
unfrequently costs the mother her life."

Angas (I., 75) refers to this custom and exclaims, rapturously, "Oh!
how strong is a mother's love when even the offensive and putrid clay
can be thus worshipped for the spirit that once was its tenant"(!!).
Angas was an uneducated scribbler, but what shall we say on finding
his sentimental view accepted by the professional German
anthropologists, Gerland (VI., 780) and Jung (109)? Anyone familiar
with Australian life must suspect at once that this custom is simply
one of the horrible modes of punishment devised for women. Curr says
the woman is "_obliged by custom_" to carry her dead child, and he
adds: "I believe that this practice is insisted on when a young mother
loses her first born, as the death of the child is thought to have
come about by carelessness." To suppose that Australian mothers who
usually kill all but two of their six or more children could be
capable of such an act for sentimental reasons is to show a logical
faculty on a par with the Australian's own. This point has already
been discussed, but a further instance related by Dr. Moorehouse (J.D.
Wood, 390), will bring the matter home:

"A female just born was thus about to be destroyed for
the benefit of a boy about four years old, whom the
mother was nourishing, while the father was standing
by, ready to commit the deed. Through the kindness of a
lady to whom the circumstances became known, and our
joint interference, this one life was saved, and the
child was properly attended to by the mother, although
she at first urged the necessity of its death as
strenuously as the father." "In other parts of the
country," Wood adds, "the women do the horrible work
themselves. They are not content with destroying the
life of the infants, but they eat them."


ROMANTIC AFFLICTION

Here, as in several of the alleged cases of African sentimentality, we
see the great need of caution and detective sagacity in interpreting
facts. To take another instance: Westermarck (503), in his search for
cases of romantic attachment and absorbing passion among savages,
fancies he has come across one in Australia, for he tells us that
"even the rude Australian girl sings in a strain of romantic
affliction--

'I never shall see my darling again.'"

As a matter of fact this line has no more to do with the "true
monogamous instinct, the absorbing passion for one," than with Julius
Caesar. Eyre relates (310, 70) that when Miago, the first native who
ever quitted Perth, was taken away on the _Beagle_ in 1838, his
_mother_ sang during his absence:

Whither does that lone ship wander,
My young son I shall never see again.

Grosse, who often sides with Westermarck, here parts company with him,
being convinced that

"what is called love in Australia ... is no spiritual
affection, but a sensual passion, which is quickly
cooled in the enjoyment.... The only examples of
_sympathetic_ lyrics that have been found in Australia
are mourning songs, and even they relate only to
relatives by blood and tribal affinity" (_B.A.,_
244)[179].


A LOCK OF HAIR

A more subtle problem than those so far considered is presented by a
courtship custom described by Bulmer (Brough Smyth, 82-84). The
natives are very superstitious in regard to their hair. They carefully
destroy any that has been cut off and would be greatly frightened to
know it had fallen into another person's hands, as that would place
their health and life in jeopardy at the other's will. Yet a girl who
has a lover will not hesitate to give him a lock of her hair. It seems
impossible to deny that this is a touch of true sentiment, of romantic
love; and Bulmer accordingly calls this lock of hair a "token of
affection." But is it a token of affection? The sequel will show. In
due course of time the couple elope, in the black of the night they
take to the bush. Great excitement prevails in camp when they are
found missing. They are called "long-legged," "thin-legged,"
"squint-eyed," or "big-headed." Search is made, the pair are tracked
and caught, and both are cruelly beaten. They make a promise not to
repeat the offence, but do not keep it; another elopement follows,
with more beatings. At last the girl becomes afraid to elope again.
She alters her tactics, feigns a severe illness, and the parents are
alarmed. Then she remembers that her lover has a lock of her hair. He
is made to confess, and another fight follows. He is half killed, but
after that he is allowed to keep the girl.

Thus we see that the lock, instead of being a "token of affection," as
Bulmer would have us believe, and as it would be in our community, is
not even a sentimental sign of the girl's confidence in her lover, but
merely a detail of a foolish custom and stupid superstition.


TWO NATIVE STORIES

As a matter of course Australian folk-lore, too, shows no traces of
the existence of love. The nearest approach to such a thing I have
been able to find is a quaint story about a man who wanted two wives
and of how he got them. It is taken from Mrs. K. Langloh Parker's
_Australian Legendary Tales_ and the substance of it is as follows:

Wurrunnah, after a long day's hunting, came back to the
camp tired and hungry. His mother had nothing for him
to eat and no one else would give him anything. He flew
into a rage and said: "I will go into a far country and
live with strangers; my people would starve me." He
went away and after divers strange adventures with a
blind man and emus, who were really black fellows, he
came to a camp where there was no one but seven young
girls. They were friendly, gave him food, and allowed
him to camp there during the night. They told him their
name was Meamei and their tribe in a far country to
which they would soon return.

The next day Wurrunnah went away as if leaving for
good; but he determined to hide near and watch what
they did, and if he could get a chance he would steal a
wife from among them. He was tired of travelling alone.
He saw them all start out with their yam-sticks in
hand. Following them he saw them stop by the nests of
some flying ants and unearth the ants. Then they sat
down, threw their yam-sticks aside, and ate the ants,
which are esteemed a great delicacy. While they were
eating Wurrunnah sneaked up to their yam-sticks and
stole two of them. When the girls had eaten all they
wanted only five of them could find their sticks; so
those five started off, expecting that the other two
would soon find their sticks and follow them.

The two girls hunted all around the ants' nests, but
could find no sticks. At last, when their backs were
turned toward him, Wurrunnah crept out and stuck the
lost yam-sticks near together in the ground; then he
slipped back to his hiding-place. When the two girls
turned round, there in front of them they saw their
sticks. With a cry of joyful surprise they ran to them
and caught hold of them to pull them out of the ground,
in which they were firmly stuck. As they were doing so,
out from his hiding-place jumped Wurrunnah. He seized
both girls round their waists, holding them tightly.
They struggled and screamed, but to no purpose. There
was none near to hear them, and the more they struggled
the tighter Wurrunnah held them. Finding their screams
and struggles in vain they quietened at length, and
then Wurrunnah told them not to be afraid, he would
take care of them. He was lonely, he said, and wanted
two wives. They must come quietly with him and he would
be good to them. But they must do as he told them. If
they were not quiet he would swiftly quieten them with
his moorillah. But if they would come quietly with him
he would he good to them. Seeing that resistance was
useless the two young girls complied with his wish, and
travelled quietly on with him. They told him that some
day their tribe would come and steal them back again;
to avoid which he travelled quickly on and on still
farther hoping to elude pursuit. Some weeks passed and
he told his wives to go and get some bark from two
pine-trees near by. They declared if they did so he
would never see them again. But he answered "Talk not
so foolishly; if you ran away soon should I catch you
and, catching you, would beat you hard. So talk no
more." They went and began to cut the bark from the
trees. As they did so each felt that her tree was
rising higher out of the ground and bearing her upward
with it. Higher and higher grew the pine-trees and up
with them went the girl until at last the tops touched
the sky. Wurrunnah called after them, but they listened
not. Then they heard the voices of their five sisters,
who from the sky stretched forth their hands and drew
the two others in to live with them in the sky, and
there you may see the seven sisters together. We know
them as the Pleiades, but the black fellows call them
the Meamei.

A few rather improper tales regarding the sun and moon are recorded in
Woods's _Native Tribes_ by Meyer, who thus sums up two of them (200);
the other being too obscene for citation here:

The sun they consider to be a female, who, when she
sets, passes the dwelling-places of the dead. As she
approaches the men assemble and divide into two bodies,
leaving a road for her to pass between them; they
invite her to stay with them, which she can only do for
a short time, as she must be ready for her journey for
the next day. For favors granted to some one among them
she receives a present of red kangaroo skin; and
therefore in the morning, when she rises, appears in a
red dress.

The moon is also a woman, and not particularly chaste.
She stays a long time with the men, and from the
effects of her intercourse with them, she becomes very
thin and wastes away to a mere skeleton. When in this
state, Nurrunduri orders her to be driven away. She
flies, and is secreted for some time, but is employed
all the time in seeking roots which are so nourishing
that in a short time she appears again, and fills out
and becomes fat rapidly.

Here we see how even such sublime and poetic phenomena as sun and moon
are to the aboriginal mind only symbols of their coarse, sensual
lives: the heavenly bodies are concubines of the men, welcomed when
fat, driven away when thin. That puts the substance of Australian love
in a nutshell.


BARRINGTON'S LOVE-STORY

In the absence of aboriginal love-stories let us amuse ourselves by
examining critically a few more of the alleged cases of romantic love
discovered by Europeans. The erudite German anthropologist Gerland
expresses his belief (VI., 755) that notwithstanding the degradation
of the Australians "cases of true romantic love occur among them," and
he refers for an instance to Barrington (I., 37). On consulting
Barrington I find the following incident related as a sample of
"genuine love in all its purity." I condense the unessential parts:

A young man of twenty-three, belonging to a tribe near
Paramatta, was living in a cave with two sisters, one
of fourteen, the other of twenty. One day when he
returned from his kangaroo hunt he could not find the
girls. Thinking they had gone to fetch water or roots
for supper, he sat down till a rain-storm drove him
into the cave, where he stumbled over the prostrate
form of the younger sister. She was lying in a pool of
blood, but presently regained consciousness and told
him that a man had come to carry off her sister, after
beating her on the head. She had seized the sister's
arm to hold her back when the brute knocked her over
with his club and dragged off the sister.

It was too late to take revenge that day, but next
morning the two set out for the tribe to which the
girl-robber belonged. As they approached the camp,
Barrington continues, "he saw the sister of the very
savage who had stolen his sister; she was leaving her
tribe to pick some sticks for a fire (this was indeed a
fine opportunity for revenge); so making his sister
hide herself, he flew to the young woman and lifted up
his club to bring her to the ground, and thus satisfy
his revenge. The victim trembled, yet, knowing his
power, she stood with all the fortitude she could;
lifting up her eyes, they came in contact with his and
such was the enchanting beauty of her form (!) that he
stood an instant motionless to gaze on it (!). The poor
thing saw this and dropped on her knees (!) to implore
his pity, but before she could speak, his revenge
softened into love (!); he threw down his club, and
clasping her in his arms (!) vowed eternal constancy
(!!!); his pity gained her love (!), thus each procured
a mutual return. Then calling his sister, she would
have executed her revenge, but for her brother, who
told her she was now his wife. On my hero asking after
his sister, his new wife said she was very ill, but
would soon be better; and she excused her brother (!)
because the means he had taken were the customary one
of procuring a wife (!!); 'but you,' said she, 'have
more white heart' (meaning he was more like the
English), 'you no beat me; me love you; you love me; me
love your sisters; your sisters love me; my brother no
good man.' This artless address won both their hearts,
and now all three live in one hut which I enabled them
to make comfortable within half a mile of my own
house."

Barrington concludes with these words: "This little anecdote I have
given as the young man related it to me and perhaps I have _lost much
of its simplicity_." It is very much to be feared that he has. I have
marked with, exclamation points the most absurdly impossible parts of
the tale as idealized and embellished by Barrington. The Australian
never told him that he "gazed motionless" on the "enchanting beauty"
of the girl's form or that his "revenge softened into love;" he never
clasped her in his arms, nor "vowed eternal constancy." The girl never
dreamt of saying that his pity gained her love, or of excusing her
brother for doing what all Australian men do. These sentimental
touches are gratuitous additions of Barrington; native Australians do
not even clasp each other in their arms, and they are as incapable of
vowing eternal constancy as of comparing Herbert Spencer's philosophy
with Schopenhauer's. Yet on the strength of such dime novel rubbish an
anthropologist assures us that savages are capable of feeling pure
romantic love! The kernel of truth in the above tale reduces itself to
this, that the young man whose sister was stolen intended to take
revenge by killing the abductor, but that on seeing his sister he
concluded to marry her. These savages, as we have seen, always act
thus, killing the enemy's women only when unable to carry them off.


RISKING LIFE FOR A WOMAN

Lumholtz relates the following story to show that "these blacks also
may be greatly overcome by the sentiment of love" (213):

"A 'civilized' black man entered a station on Georgina
River and carried off a woman who belonged to a young
black man at the station. She loved her paramour and
was glad to get away from the station; but the whites
desired to keep her for their black servant, as he
could not be made to stay without her, and they brought
her back, threatening to shoot the stranger if he came
again. Heedless of the threat, he afterward made a
second attempt to elope with his beloved, but the white
men pursued the couple and shot the poor fellow."

If Lumholtz had reflected for a moment on the difference between love
as a sentiment and love as an appetite, he would have realized the
error of using the expression "the sentiment of love" in connection
with such a story of adulterous kidnapping, in which there is
absolutely nothing to indicate whether the kidnapper coveted the other
man's wife for any other than the most carnal reasons. It is not
unusual for an Australian to risk his life in stealing a woman. He
does that every time he captures one from another tribe. In men who
have so little imaginative faculty as these, the possibility of being
killed has no more deterrent effect than it has in two dogs or stags
fighting for a female. We must not judge such indifference to deadly
consequences from our point of view.


GERSTAECKER'S LOVE-STORY

Gerstaecker, a German traveller, who traversed a part of Australia,
has a tale of aboriginal love which also bears the earmarks of
fiction. On his whole trip, he says, in his 514-page volume devoted to
Australia, he heard of only one case of genuine love. A young man of
the Bamares tribe took a fancy to a girl of the Rengmutkos. She was
also pleased with him and he eloped with her at night, taking her to
his hunting-ground on the river. The tribe heard of his escapade and
ordered him to return the girl to her home. He obeyed, but two weeks
later eloped with her again. He was reprimanded and informed that if
it happened again he would be killed. For the present he escaped
punishment personally, but was ordered to cudgel the girl and then
send her back home. He obeyed again; the girl fell down before him and
he rained hard blows on her head and shoulders till the elders
themselves interceded and cried enough. The girl was chased away and
the lover remained alone. For two days he refused to join in the
hunting or diversions of his companions. On the third day he ascended
an eminence whence the Murray Valley can be seen. In the distance he
saw two columns of smoke; they had been maintained for him all this
time by his girl. He took his spear and opossum coat and hastened
toward the columns of smoke. He was about to commit his third offence,
which meant certain death, yet on he went and found the girl. Her
wounds were not yet healed, but she hastened to meet him and put her
head on his bosom.

This tale is open to the same criticism as Lumholtz's. The man risks
his life, not for another, but to secure what he covets. It is a
romantic love-story, but there is no indication anywhere of romantic
love, while some of the details are fictitiously embellished. An
Australian girl does not put her head on her lover's bosom, nor could
she camp alone and keep up two columns of smoke for several days
without being discovered and kidnapped. The story is evidently one of
an ordinary elopement, embellished by European fancy.[180]


LOCAL COLOR IN COURTSHIP

There is some quaint local color in Australian courtship, but usually
blows play too important a role to make their procedure acceptable to
anyone with a less waddy-proof skull than an Australian. Spencer and
Gillen relate (556) that in cases of charming, the initiative is
sometimes taken by the woman,

"who can, of course, imagine that she has been charmed,
and then find a willing aider and abettor in the man
whose vanity is flattered by this response to his magic
power, which he can soon persuade himself that he did
really exercise; besides which, an extra wife has its
advantages in the way of procuring food and saving him
trouble, while, if his other women object, the matter
is one which does not hurt him, for it can easily be
settled once and for all by a stand-up fight between
the women and the rout of the loser."

Quaintly Australian are the following details of Kurnai courtship
given by Howitt:

"Sometimes it might happen that the young men were
backward. Perhaps there might be several young girls
who ought to be married, and the women had then to take
the matter in hand when some eligible young men were at
camp. They consulted, and some went out in the forest
and with sticks killed some of the little birds, the
yeerung. These they brought back to the camp and
casually showed them to some of the men; then there was
an uproar. The men were very angry. The yeerungs, their
brothers, had been killed! The young men got sticks;
the girls took sticks also, and they attacked each
other. Heavy blows were struck, heads were broken, and
blood flowed, but no one stopped them.

"Perhaps this light might last a quarter of an hour,
then they separated. Some even might be left on the
ground insensible. Even the men and women who were
married joined in the free fight. The next day the
young men, the brewit, went, and in their turn killed
some of the women's 'sisters,' the birds djeetgun, and
the consequence was that on the following day there was
a worse fight than before. It was perhaps a week or two
before the wounds and bruises were healed. By and by,
some day one of the eligible young men met one of the
marriageable young women; he looked at her, and said
'Djeetgun!' She said 'Yeerung! What does the yeerung
eat?' The reply was, 'He eats so-and-so,' mentioning
kangaroo, opossum, or emu, or some other game. Then
they laughed, and she ran off with him without telling
anyone."


LOVE-LETTERS

Apart from magic and birds Australian lovers appear not to have been
without means of communicating with one another. Howitt says that if a
Kurnai girl took a fancy to a man she might send him a secret message
asking, "Will you find me some food?" And this was understood to be a
proposal--a rather unsentimental and utilitarian proposal, it must be
confessed. According to one of the correspondents of Curr (III., 176)
the natives along the Mary River even made use of a kind of
love-letters which, he says, "were peculiar."

"When the writer was once travelling with a black boy
the latter produced from the lining of his hat a bit of
twig about an inch long and having three notches cut on
it. The black boy explained that he was a _dhomka_
(messenger), that the central notch represented
himself, and the other notches, one the youth sending
the message, the other the girl for whom it was
intended. It meant, in the words of Dickens, 'Barkis is
willin'.' The _dhomka_ sewed up the love-symbol in the
lining of his hat, carried it for months without
divulging his secret to his sable friends, and finally
delivered it safely. This practice appeared to be
well-known, and was probably common."

Such a "love-letter," consisting of three notches cut in a twig,
symbolically sums up this whole chapter. The difference between this
bushman's twig and the love-letter of a civilized modern suitor is no
greater than the difference between aboriginal Australian "love" and
genuine romantic love.


ISLAND LOVE ON THE PACIFIC

Between the northern extremity of Australia and the southern extremity
of New Guinea, about ninety miles wide, lies Torres Strait, discovered
by a Spaniard in 1606, and not visited again by whites till Captain
Cook sailed through in 1770. This strait has been called a "labyrinth
of islands, rocks, and coral reefs," so complicated and dangerous that