[83] Gill, Life in the Southern Isles, p. 47. Turner, Samoa, pp. 290 (natives of Hudson’s Island), 295 (natives of Arorae), 297 (natives of Nikumau of the Gilbert Group), 300 (natives of Francis Island), 337 (Efatese, of the New Hebrides). Tutuila, in Jour. Polynesian Soc. i. 268 (Line Islanders). Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iv. 421 (Sandwich Islanders). Cook, Journal of a Voyage round the World, p. 41 sq. (Tahitians).
Among the natives of Herbert River, Northern Queensland, there is “considerable respect for the right of property, and they do not steal from one another to any great extent…. If they hunt they will not take another person’s game, all the members of the same tribe having apparently full confidence in each other.”[84] When a theft does occur, “the thief is challenged by his victim to a duel with wooden swords and shields; and the matter is settled sometimes privately, the relatives of both parties serving as witnesses, sometimes publicly at the borboby, where two hundred to three hundred meet from various tribes to decide all their disputes. The victor in the duel wins in the dispute.”[85] So also among the Dieyerie tribe, “should any native steal from another, and the offender be known, he is challenged to fight by the person he has robbed, and this settles the matter.”[86] Of the Bangerang tribe of Victoria we are told that, amongst themselves, they were scrupulously honest;[87] and, speaking of West Australian natives, Mr. Chauncy expresses his belief that “the members of a tribe never pilfer from each other.”[88] In their relations to Europeans, again, Australian blacks have been sometimes accused of thievishness,[89] sometimes praised for their honesty.[90] From his own observation Mr. Curr has no doubt that they feel that theft is wrong.[91] Of the aborigines of West Australia we are told that they occasionally speared the sheep and robbed the potato gardens of the early settlers simply because they did not understand the settlers’ views regarding property, having themselves no separate property in any living animal except their dogs or in any produce of the soil. But “only entrust a native with property, and he will invariably be faithful to the trust. Lend him your gun to shoot game, and he will bring you the result of his day’s sport; send him a long journey with provisions for your shepherd, and he will certainly deliver them safely. Entrust him with a flock of sheep through a rugged country to a distant run, and he and his wife will take them generally more safely than a white man would.”[92]
[84] Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, p. 147.
[85] Ibid. p. 126.
[86] Gason, in Woods, Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 266.
[87] Curr, Recollections of Squatting in Victoria, p. 298.
[88] Chauncy, in Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, ii. 278.
[89] Supra, [ii. 2, n. 1.]
[90] Howitt, in Brought Smyth, op. cit. ii. 306. Fraser, Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 90.
[91] Curr, The Australian Race, i. 100.