[31] For instance, we can judge this from Curr's Recollections; we know pretty well the state of the different tribes investigated by Howitt, Spencer and Gillen, and by Roth. In many other cases a general idea may be formed from different hints.
[32] The aborigines in their natural uncorrupted state appear to have been extremely shy, and great difficulties would undoubtedly have arisen had any one attempted to come into more intimate contact with them. But in the early days of the settlement of Australia there was nobody with such intentions. It is sufficient to read very early accounts, such as the voyages of Gov. Phillip, Barrington; as also accounts of explorers like Grey, Eyre, Leichardt, Mitchell, Sturt, etc., to see how shy and inaccessible were the blacks in their really savage state.
[33] For examples how natives on mission stations may be forced into morality, legal and Christian marriages, etc., the reader may be referred to the personal diaries of missionaries. Compare e. g. the article by the missionary D. Mathews, l.c. pp. 48 sqq.
[34] See below, the statements, [pp. 92] sqq.
[35] Compare also above, [pp. 2-5].
[36] As far as I see, in the present state of our knowledge, it is only admissible to speak with greatest care and in very broad lines of the Australian types of culture. Interesting attempts have been made in this direction by Dr. Graebner, Mr. N. W. Thomas, and Father Schmidt. The two latter especially base their work on a profound and extensive knowledge, and formulate their results with the utmost reserve and carefulness. Fr. W. Schmidt has at his disposal the powerful instrument of linguistic knowledge. Mr. W. N. Thomas knows the Australian facts as nobody else does. Their conclusions are therefore of much weight. The present investigations afford little opportunity to point out geographic differences. Compare Fr. W. Schmidt, "Die Stellung, d. Aranda," etc., Z.f.E., 1908, pp. 866 sqq.; F. Graebner, Ibid., 1905, pp. 28 sqq.; Globus, xc. Consult also N. W. Thomas, Kinship, and the same, Z.f.E., 1905.
[37] Mr. Thomas in his work on Australian kinship suggests at every step questions which apparently are quite within the scope of investigation, and upon which our present evidence gives no answer. But unhappily I have not been able to trace any influence of this important work in the recent ethnographic publications.
[38] Curr, A.R., i. pp. 53 sqq.
[39] (Hist. H. Marr., chap. iii.) Dr. Westermarck's work was written on much more general lines. He did not aim at a purely morphological reconstruction of family life in any ethnographical province. I did not, therefore, refer to his researches in the methodological sketch; here, however, they must serve as a starting point. It is the most exhaustive treatise on the individual family; all the essential parts of the problem are sketched in a masterly manner in this fundamental work, and the outlines of more special investigation indicated.
[40] Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 343. See also their modes of getting females by capture. Compare pp. 200 sq. and pp. 348 sq.