10 RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



ing parties has to do is to build a fresh hut and fire, and beckon 

 the other in. Thus a good orthodox method here is for the 

 woman to make the advance. Supposing she wants a particular 

 boy, and they are members of the suitable exogamous group, 

 she will make a new hut and light a fire thereon his return from 

 the day's chase ; she then beckons him to come, and if he accepts 

 and comes over, they are henceforth recognised as man and wife. 



A man may unfortunately fall in love with a married woman 

 who reciprocates his affections and elope with her. 14 After a 

 varying length of absence the couple will return, the seducer 

 bringing her back to her original husband, who either forgives 

 him 15 and takes her unto himself again, in which case she will 

 receive more or less chastisement, or tells her newly found lover 

 to keep her, expecting, of course, a solatium in the way of spears, 

 etc., or else fights, the victor being now the recognised husband. 

 The particular behaviour of the injured husband will vary accord- 

 ing as he is afraid or not to fight ; where the two men do come 

 to blows they make no attempt at actual killing, for fear of 

 retribution, and their quari'el is not joined in by any others. If 

 the original husband, in the North-Western Districts, refuses to 

 receive his erring spouse, the Camp-council sees that she becomes 

 and is recognised as the wife of the man she ran away with. A 

 man eloping with a woman only betrothed to another has to 

 answer for his conduct to the latter in the same manner as if she 

 were already married. 



18. Marriage by capture includes those cases where, on the part 

 of the male, the attachment is one-sided, the female not being a 

 consenting party, with the result that more or less force and 

 stratagem has to be brought into requisition, such as there is 

 being usually dependent upon whether she is a tribeswoman or 

 a stranger. Thus, on the Tully River a man may beckon a 

 woman over to his freshly built hut and newly lighted fire, and 

 if she refuses, will pull her in by the wrist ; were she to scream 

 too much, to show fight, and bite, etc., he will just thrash and 

 hammer her and compel submission. The woman is absolutely 

 passive ; she may howl and try to get away, but no notice is 

 taken, she being now his recognised wife. In most cases, how- 

 ever, marriage by capture of a tribeswoman is a somewhat risky 

 affair, in that the self-assertive husband has to answer for his 

 conduct to her male relatives, etc. Matters, of course, are 

 different where the captured wife is a stranger, with no friends 



14 In the N.W. Districts, if he values his life, she must be of the proper 

 exogamous group. 



.-. Roth— Bull. 8— Sect. 2. 



