Oriental Women

by Edward B. Pollard

The marriage tie of Australian women cannot be likened to that existing among Christian nations, nor is it similar to the polygamy of Mohammedan peoples, but is a modified form of group marriage.

The Australian man obtains his wife in one of four different ways. His father secures her for him by an arrangement with the girl's father; he charms his intended by magic; he captures her as he would an enemy in battle; or she elopes with him. It is to be understood, of course, that the woman belongs to the proper class by descent. The Australians are very particular in this regard. The first and most usual method of taking a wife is connected with the law which makes every woman the possible wife of some man. There is little or no ceremony in connection with the rite of matrimony. When a man has secured a wife, she becomes his private property.

Let us imagine, therefore, that a man has set his heart upon a woman of the proper group. There are several ways of practising magic to procure a wife. Spencer and Gillan, the greatest authorities in this line of study, say, that when a man is desirous of securing a woman for his wife,--it makes no difference whether or not she be already assigned to some other man,--he takes a small strip of wood, attached at one end to a string, and marks it with the design of his totem, and with this instrument (called by the American boy a "buzzer") he goes into the bush accompanied by his friends. All night long the men keep up a low singing and chanting of amorous phrases. At daylight, the man stands up alone and swings his roarer. The sound of the instrument and the singing of the air is carried to the ear of the woman by magic, and it has the power of compelling her affections. It is asserted that women have been known to come fifty miles in order to marry the man who had bewitched them. There are other ways of charming a woman upon whom the lover has set his heart,--such as the charm of the gaudy headband worn on a public occasion, the charm of blowing the horn, and more. Elopement is only another form of magic. The third method of obtaining a wife, by capture, has been described as universal among the Australians, but the latest writers affirm that it is the rarest way in which the central Australian secures his wife.

Among the Australians, Polynesians, Malays, and many others of the lower races, descent has been primarily and uniformly through the mother. It was not until tribes became sedentary and property was held by individuals that inheritance passed to the male members of the family. The so-called mother-right is based upon the belief that individuals forming a certain clan or group, by whatever name they may be called, are the offspring of a woman who lived long ago. The term mutterrecht, by which this custom is called, is of course a sort of legal fiction; for men have always governed the world. Two benefits grew out of this form of descent. One was the certainty of motherhood. The other was the assurance, to every individual, of family support, as the children of a number of sisters were not cousins to one another, but all were brothers and sisters. So long as there were provisions with any one of this group, the rest were sure of a meal. This plan of descent through the mother has survived in many curious ways. It is found among many African tribes. Even to-day the Spaniards, who have a great deal of Moorish blood in their veins, have the custom of adding the mother's name to the father's to show that the descent is legitimate. It may be of interest to know, in passing, that James Smithson, the founder of the Smithsonian Institution, was required by his father, the Duke of Northumberland, to be known by his mother's name until he was of age, when he was allowed to assume the family name of the duke, which was Smithson. This is but a modern instance of how persistent the ancient custom has been. As soon as sedentary life and settled ownership of property took the place of nomadic life and communal ownership, mother-right or matriarchy passed gradually into patriarchy. It is curious to know that among the American Indians at the time they were discovered one could find all degrees of this transition. We must be careful, too, to discriminate between the tribe and the clan, or gens, for all savage tribes are exogamous with respect to the clans and endogamous with respect to the tribes. When the people develop the tendency to marriage within the tribe, it is evident that they have passed out of the earlier stages of clan grouping into the stage of property grouping. Marrying in the tribes was necessary, in order, as we might put it, to "keep the money in the family." Among many of the lowest as well of the highest civilization, the practice is against marrying a girl who is akin; and it is always a subject of humor when a young woman in our own country marries without changing her name, a quiet recognition of the old practice of the exogamous marriage between clan members.

Clothing for warmth or protection is not worn by Australian women; even the apron is not universal. The sense of beauty, however, has been awakened in these savage breasts, and expresses itself in pretty headbands, necklaces, and breast ornaments of seeds, teeth, and strings colored with ochre. The men, too, are but little better attired; but one indispensable article of their costumes must not be omitted in this connection, namely, the knout, or coil of twine, with which they thrash the women.

The home of the Australian woman, where she and her co-wives and their children live, is nothing more than a brush shelter, so faced as to protect the occupants from the prevailing wind. In front of this, or under it, they work, eat, sleep, and hold social intercourse. In the morning, they go forth with their digging sticks and wooden troughs to gather small animals. They take no thought of what they shall eat, the problem being to have anything to eat. When the men hunt the small kangaroo, the women surround the game and drive it toward the ambush. Every edible thing is known and is used for food. The women are the gleaners also, gathering large quantities of seeds, throwing them from one trough to another so that the wind may blow away the chaff, grinding them on one stone with another, and cooking in hot ashes the dough made from the meal. The cooking of flesh food is done by men, as that prepared by females may not be eaten by them; the women attend to the vegetable diet. In many places, females over a certain age take their meals apart; this rule, however, is not uniform.

Should the Australian woman allow her child to live past the earliest stages of infancy, she is usually a devoted mother. She often bears her child about on her shoulders as she attends upon her tasks, even after the child has become five or six years old. And should the little one die, she will continue to bear the dear body with her, apparently not noting the decomposition, which soon sets in. Mothers have been known to carry the body of a dead child for weeks.

From earliest childhood, girls as well as boys are trained to note the tracks of every living thing. For amusement, skilful women imitate, in the sand, the tracks of animals; and they know one another's footsteps. Spencer and Gillan say that every woman has her pitchi, or "wooden trough," from one to three feet long, in which she carries everything, even the baby, for she is both pack and passenger beast; when she is hunting, it will very often be used as a scoop-shovel to clear out earth. Her only other implement is her digging stick, the primitive pick-plow excavator. It is a straight staff, pointed at the end. When at work requiring its use, the owner loosens the earth with the digging stick, held in the right hand, while her left hand plays the part of shovel. Acre after acre of the soil wherein lives the honey ant is dug over for this toothsome mite. Little girls go out with their mothers; and while the latter are digging up vermin and insects, the toddlers, with little picks, will be taking their first lesson in what will be their chief lifework.

Among savages, the textile art--woman's peculiar industry--is little encouraged. The spindle used in Australia before the discovery of the island-continent in 1606, and which is still in use among the wild tribes, is the most primitive conceivable, for it is merely a little switch with a hooked end. The women make string for tying, as well as for bags and network, out of human, opossum, and kangaroo hair, from sinew, like the Eskimo, and from vegetable fibre. They sit upon the ground, use the left hand for a distaff, and with the right hand roll the spindle dexterously on the naked thigh. When a foot or so of string is finished, it is rolled about the hook of the spindle for a bobbin. When two of these are completed, a stick is driven into the ground, and a rude rope or twine walk is set up. The women know the dyes in many plants and use them. With the strings they make basketry, nets, bags, plaiting, and many ornamental forms of simple lacework and borders. Indeed, the Australian aborigines are at the bottom of the textile ladder, where human fingers perform all spinning, netting, and weaving.

In lieu of the gaudy costumes and of the tattooed tooth patterns etched upon the skin among other Indo-Pacific tribes, Australian women decorate their breasts and other parts with horrid scars. They cut the skin with flint or glass, and rub ashes or down into the open wounds in order that the cicatrices may be large and prominent. They submit to these tortures with the greatest satisfaction, and add more from time to time as memorials of personal experiences or in honor of the dead.