235 



21-23, Both sexes are marked alike, and, so far as I know, the 

 markings have no significawce beyond show. 



24-26. A girl is secluded at her first menstruation, during 

 which she sits on a piece of "paper-bark" in her mother's camp, 

 but they are not secluded at subsequent periods. During their 

 courses they observe no particular rules, except that, if they are 

 sick or very weak, they are then rubbed with Eucalyptus leaves 

 made hot over the flame of a lire. In assigning a cause for the 

 flow they simply say that Gnabya (vide 6j makes the blood come 

 every moon, and that in a few days he will stop it again. 

 Although a most brutal and inhuman race of people, they possess 

 a very wholesome dread of having sexual intercourse during 

 menstruation, and positively assert that any man so doing will 

 become covered Avith sores ; but, as stated, she is not secluded 

 after the flrst period ; at subsequent periods she may be seen and 

 conversed with, and she is merely looked upon with compassion. 



Marriage 



27. A man is not allowed to marry any of his own tribe 

 unless it is very clear that no blood relationship exists, however 

 remote. 



28-29. Young men and women have sexual intercourse without 

 marriage, and if the young woman becomes pregnant the young 

 man is compelled to take her as his wife. If a man cohabit with 

 a woman already married, and her unfaithfulness is discovered or 

 even suspected by the husband, she is beaten most unmercifully, 

 and sometimes deliberately killed, without interference with his 

 brutality to his wife. Sometimes he gives her away to a 

 polygamist, which is considered a great punisliment. A male 

 adulterer, if unmarried, is banished from the tribe until he can 

 capture or obtain a wife from some neighbouring tribe. 



30. They are very strict with regard to the degrees of con- 

 sanguinity, and will not permit the marriage of blood relations, 

 however remote ; but they allow a man to marry his deceased 

 wife's sister, or a woman her deceased husband's brother. A 

 young man, son of a captured woman, who captures a young 

 woman from his mother's tribe must be very careful to find out 

 that she is not a relative, or he will not be allowed to have her. 



31-32. Polygamy is extensively practised, but polyandry is un- 

 known. 



33. The reason they assign for having more than one wife, is 

 that they will be better supplied with honey and other edibles, 

 the procuring of which is among the duties expected of the 

 women. Where there are a number of wives living together in 

 this way, there are never ending fights and squabbles, so that a 

 surfeit of connulnal bliss has its dai'k side. The husband never 



