120° ON THE ORGANISATION OF AUSTRALIAN TRIBES. 
took place there and then between him and the offender. Otherwise a set fight was 
arranged, at which the offender had to do battle with the girl’s promised husband and 
his kindred, one after the other. If he was so fortunate as to knock down all of them, 
and had any woman available to exchange for his inamorato, he might be permitted 
to keep her for his wife. If he was knocked down several times by his adversaries 
(some informants said four times), the girl would be at once compelled to go to her 
husband. 
Among the Woeworung it also happened that a girl sometimes preferred another 
man than him to whom she had been promised, and she then eloped. The married 
men followed her, and, if they caught her, brought her back. She met with severe 
treatment by her mother and sisters, and possibly her brother would spear her through 
the leg to prevent her running off again. The man with whom she had eloped had 
to stand out in an expiatory fight. He was armed with a club and shield, and the 
oirl’s male relatives first threw their boomerangs at him, and he then fought them one 
by one. Berak said that frequently after this ordeal he was permitted to keep her for 
his wife.* 
With the Wotjobaluk there were also elopements arising out of betrothal. 
According to my informants, however, the punishment for this offence was much less 
than in most other tribes with which I am acquainted. When the elopement was 
discovered, the girl’s friends were sure to pick a quarrel with those of the man, and 
a fight was certain to take place, yet, when the couple returned after a time, nothing 
was done beyond his having to stand out in an expiatory fight, after which the girl 
was regarded as his wife. 
An excellent account of the course and consequences of elopement in the 
Wakelbura tribe has been given me by Mr. Muirhead. He says: ‘‘ Wives are only 
obtained by betrothal, excepting in cases of elopement and capture. In elopement, 
the man to whom the girl was promised claims her from the offender, and there is a 
set fight between them. The victor keeps her, but there are usually two or three 
contests before the matter is settled. But if the girl had given her consent to her 
betrothal, and then eloped, the case would be quite different, even supposing that the 
man she eloped with were otherwise eligible by being of the proper class and totem, 
and that she had been compelled to elope by force. She would then be almost cut to 
pieces before being restored to her proper husband. 
‘“‘In cases where a man from a distant tribe, say from the Barcoo or Mackenzie 
Rivers, ran off with a Wakelbura woman, and got away safely to his distant home 
before her people would catch him, and that meanwhile the woman’s promised 
husband died, the other must forsake his own people and join hers, or her relatives 
* See Life and Adventures of William Buckley, &c., by John Morgan, Tasmania, 1882, p. 62. 
