This senseless belief, inspired by the demon of discord, is of course the source of frequent wars, and one of the causes which serve to maintain the native Australians in their state of barbarism. The aggrieved party, anxious for revenge, assembles its neighbours, to consult with them concerning the proper course to be pursued. The general opinion having been declared for war, a messenger is sent to announce their intention to the opposite party. These immediately assemble their friends and neighbours, and all prepare for the approaching battle. The two armies (usually from fifty to two hundred each) meet, and after a great deal of mutual vituperation, the combat commences. From their singular dexterity in avoiding or parrying the missiles of their adversaries, the engagement usually continues a long time without any fatal result. When a man is killed (and sometimes before) a cessation takes place; another scene of recrimination, abuse, and explanation ensues, and the affair commonly terminates. All hostility is now at an end, the two parties mix amicably together, bury the dead, and join in a general dance, for, like all other savage races, the Australians are very fond of singing and saltatorial displays. Their songs are short, containing generally only one or two ideas repeated over and over again. Is a native in a towering passion, he sings to himself some such words as
‘I’ll spear his liver,
I’ll spear his lights,
I’ll spear his heart,’ &c., &c.
while he sharpens the weapon intended to execute his menace, and waxing more and more excited as he sings, quivers his spear in the air, and, furiously gesticulating, imitates the various incidents of a fight. His wives chime in from time to time with a line or two expressive of their contempt for the offender:
‘The bone-rumped,
Long-shinned,
Thin-thighed fellow.’
the bystanders applaud, and the savage, having fairly sung the wrath out of himself, assists in getting up a dance. Is a native afraid, he sings himself full of courage; is he hungry, he sings; if he is full (provided he is not so full as to be in a state of stupor), he sings more lustily than ever; in fact, under all circumstances he finds aid and comfort from singing. The Australian songs are therefore naturally varied in their forms, but their concision conveys in the simplest manner the impulsive idea. By a song or wild chant the women irritate the men to acts of vengeance, and four or five mischievously-inclined old women can soon stir up forty or fifty men to any deed of blood by means of their chants, which are accompanied by tears and groans, until the men are worked into a perfect state of frenzy.
Among the native dances, the Corribory is the most remarkable. It is always performed at night, by the light of blazing boughs, to time beaten on a stretched skin. The dancers are all painted white, and in such remarkably varied ways that not two are alike. Darkness seems essential to the performance of a corribory, and the white figures coming forward in mystic order from an obscure background, while the singers and the beaters of drums are invisible, produce a highly theatrical effect. At first, two persons make their appearance, slowly moving their arms and legs; then others one by one join in, each imperceptibly warming into the truly savage attitude of the corribory jump; the legs then stride to the utmost, the head is turned over one shoulder, the eyes glare and are fixed with savage energy all in one direction, the arms also are raised and inclined towards the head, and the hands usually grasp the boomerang or some other warlike weapon. The jump now keeps time with each beat, the dancers at every movement taking six inches to one side, all being in a connected line led by the first. The line is sometimes doubled and trebled, according to the space and to the number of the performers, and this produces a great effect, for when the front line jumps to the left the second jumps to the right, and thus this strange savage dance goes on with increasing intensity, until it suddenly and instantaneously stops, having attained the highest pitch of vivacity.
One of the most remarkable facts connected with the Australians is their division into certain great families, such as the Ballaroke, the Tolondarup, the Ngotock, &c., all the members of which bear the same names. These family names are perpetuated and spread through the country by the operation of two remarkable laws—that a man cannot marry a woman of his own family name, and that children of either sex always take the family name of their mother.
Each family adopts some animal or plant as its Kobong, or badge, and none of its members will kill an animal or pluck any plant of the species to which its Kobong belongs, except under particular circumstances.
The ceremony of marriage, which among most nations is considered so important and interesting, is with this people one of the least regarded. The woman is looked upon as an article of property, and is sold or given away by her relatives without the slightest consideration of her own pleasure. When a native dies, his brother inherits his wives and children, but his brother must be of the same family name as himself.
The old men manage to keep the females a good deal among themselves, giving their daughters to one another; and the more female children they have, the greater is their chance of getting another wife by this sort of exchange.