372 ON THE ABORIGINES OF THE LOWER MURRAY, 



Their weapons are just as simple ; a few reed-spears with 

 hardwood ends, a throwing stick, a sort of shield, besides clubs 

 or wad dies and boomerangs, comprise the whole of their armoury. 

 The boomerang appears to have been a late introduction, and 

 I have never seen a native on the Murray who made use of 

 it as a defensive weapon. 



Their social position is naturally a very low one ; they do not 

 appear to have any idea of a Supreme Being, they possess no 

 religious rites, and every man who is strong and cunning enough 

 to enforce his authority and to subject the weak, will always be a 

 chief among them. Marriage ceremonies they have none, and 

 when a native takes a lubra to himself for good, it is pretty 

 certain that, however young she may be, she has- had connection 

 with most of the men of the tribe. These women are often 

 obtained by stealing them from another tribe, in which case the 

 unhappy creature is generally beaten into a state of insensibility, 

 or they are exchanged, any man giving his own sister for that of 

 another ; thus many young men who have no sister to offer, are 

 deprived of the blessings of the conjugal state, or rather they 

 possess no lubra which they may order about, or make a slave of. 



They exchange wives out of compliment to visitors of other 

 tribes, during the time of their stay ; and they freely ofier both 

 their wives and daughters to any European who may have a 

 piece of damper, a fish-hook, or any other present to bestow. 

 They treat their children kindly, though they do not hesitate to 

 destroy them sometimes at their birth, and particularly if the 

 babe is a cripple ; still I remember a man, named Piper, with 

 malformed feet, who was then about twenty-five years of age, and 

 able to make a living as well as any other blackfellow. 



The children do almost what they like ; it sounds ridiculous, 

 though it is a fact, when I say that they often leave the mother's 

 breast, to take the pipe out of her mouth, and have a smoke ; 

 they suckle their children often for four years and more. Of 

 their dogs the natives are almost as fond as of their children. 

 Women do not hesitate to suckle pups ; and it is not to be won- 

 dered at, that under such circumstances, the dogs become much 

 attached to the aboriginals : and if only with them for a few 

 nights, they seldom follow their white master again. They sleep 



