Lower Murray Aborigines. 17 



state of things is induced by the elders (men and 

 women), recounting lewd tales and traditions by their camp 

 fires, and by their promiscuous manner of sleeping, and 

 huddling together in their rude gunyaas. 



No man can get a wife unless he has a sister or female 

 ward to give in exchange, and in too many instances the 

 father of a grown up son will (instead of allowing the son to 

 have his sister to exchange for a wife) exchange his daughter 

 for a young wife for himself, although, perhaps, he may have 

 two or three wives already, and no one has a right to say 

 anything against it. The elders of a tribe will not let the 

 young men go to other tribes to steal wives, as that would 

 entail a feud, and probably an onslaught to recover the 

 abducted wife or wives, when perhaps many lives would be 

 lost ; thus, therefore, a poor fellow who has no female rela- 

 tive under his controJ, must perforce live all his life a 

 bachelor, and the worst part of it is, that he is perfectly 

 aware of it from his earliest years. 



Sometimes two brothers-in-law will quarrel, when the first 

 thing they do (if it become serious) is to take each his respec- 

 tive sister away from the other, although they may each 

 have babies, and exchange them away with some one else. 

 Quarrels of this kind very often arise, and this summary 

 method of settlement is deemed perfectly just. 



The children receive no education ; as soon as they can run 

 about, they are allowed to do whatever they please, without 

 reference to any one ; their parents have not the slightest 

 control over them. They have no system of teaching 

 patience, endurance of pain, or privation ; in fact, the 

 children and adults are woefully deficient in everything 

 good or virtuous. 



The sports of the children are merely the occupations of 

 their riper years in miniature. 



They arrive at puberty about the age of thirteen ; girls of 

 fhat age are oftentimes mothers. An instance of twins being 

 born is unknown. 



When a woman becomes a widow, she falls back to her 

 father or brother, as the case may be, and if not too old, she 

 is exchanged for a young wife the first convenient oppor- 

 tunity. The woman's feelings are never studied in matri- 

 monial proceedings. 



They cook their food by means of red hot clay placed over 

 the bottom and round the sides of a hole prepared for that 

 purpose. Over the hot clay they place a thin layer of damp 



c 



