The women are also sometimes heard singing in the woods, but hardly ever in the camp.
The Australian natives are gay and happy, but their song is rather melancholy, and in excellent harmony with the sombre nature of Australia. It awakened feelings of sadness in me when I heard it from the solemn gum-tree forest, accompanied by the monotonous clatter of the two wooden weapons.
My men were in good spirits on this expedition, and they sang nearly every night of their own accord. The sole cause of their happiness was that they received plenty of the white man’s food. I had taken with me an abundance of provisions, and I distributed them liberally, on the false assumption that the more I gave them the better they would work. Though I had long been careful to give them nothing gratis, and always to demand work for what I bestowed, I had not yet learned to give them only fair compensation, for the more they get the more they want. To be liberal is simply dangerous, for they assume that the gift is bestowed out of fear, and they look upon the giver as a person easy to kill. Too great liberality demoralises them. They become exacting and disobedient, and finally treacherously assault the giver.
As long as they understand that they can have advantages from a white man, they let him live. The one thing which keeps them from killing him is fear.
After having received all the food they wanted they became lazy, and demanded a fuller compensation for their work. Their demands increased day by day, and were no longer limited to food, but gradually included the most unreasonable things, such as the clothes I wore, not to mention my weapons and the whole supply of tobacco.
One morning when Willy and I went out to get the horses, he boldly demanded the trousers I was wearing. When I positively refused to give them to him, he wanted to borrow them to protect himself from the dew on the grass, which he said annoyed him.
No matter how much they had eaten, they never said no when I, in excessive liberality, offered them more food. They laid by what they did not eat, but I did not scold them, for I was anxious to keep them in my service. It soon became plain to me, however, that I must take a different course if I wished to save my life.
CHAPTER XII
The position of woman among the blacks—The husband the hunter, and the woman the provider of the family—Black female slaves—“Marking” the wives—A twelve-year-old wife—Considerate husbands—Wives an inheritance—Deserted by my followers—Reasoning power of the blacks—Darkness and rain.
The wives of Willy and Chinaman had kept far in the rear of the expedition all the time, as they, in company with other women of the tribe, were in search of fruits and larvæ. Among the blacks it is the women who daily provide food, and they frequently make long excursions to collect things to eat. The position of woman here, as elsewhere among savages, is a very subordinate one.