THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES, 



681 



lord. He is brutal, and punishes the lightest offense with the lance or 

 hatchet. 



Polygamy is universal, but the oldest men of the tribe have the 

 most wives, acquiring them in exchange for their daughters. A num- 

 ber of young men are thus compelled to remain bachelors. When a 

 young man has, after cruel ceremonies and horrible tortures to test his 

 courage, been proclaimed a warrior, he may take a wife. If he is a 

 son of a great warrior, he will have little difficulty in the matter ; but, 

 generally, he will have to capture his wife, or buy her from a neigh- 

 boring tribe, in return for some girl over whom he can exercise a cer- 

 tain degree of control. Since the tribe is only an extension of the 

 family, and all of its members are generally closely related, it is neces- 

 sary to marry outside of it. Hence three methods of marriage are 

 practiced free consent, capture, and exchange. 



Fig. 2. 



Mutilations, especially of the first phalanges of the left hand, are 

 practiced among the natives ; circumcision, tattooing not regular and 

 complete as in Samoa and New Zealand, but simply in curved lines 

 are in frequent use. They paint themselves indifferently with white, 

 yellow, and black streaks ; blue was unknown among them till the 

 arrival of the Europeans. 



The most numerous and most robust tribes are those which live on 



