(Note also the emu-feather skull cap, light-wood shield, and “Kutturu.”)
The newly-born infant, as it lies upon the sand, is rubbed all over and dried with ashes; then it is usually transferred to a sheet of bark or a trough-shaped bark food-carrier, in which it is carried about during the first few months of its existence, the mother, at feeding time and other odd moments, taking it up into her arms. On Sunday Island the bark food-carrier, there known as “oladda,” is used as a cradle; one often might see a busy mother, attending to duties which occupy her hands, putting her child to sleep by simultaneously rocking the receptacle containing it with her foot ([Plate XI]).
The Aluridja smear ochre, ashes, and fat over the body to protect it against the hot wind and the flies. Some of the south-eastern tribes, now practically extinct, did likewise.
Among the Kolaias near Cambridge Gulf the common practice is to apply mother’s milk to the infant’s body and sprinkle it with charcoal. In their endeavour to make a young mother’s breast as productive as possible, the Aluridja and Arunndta burn sticks of the mulga and stroke the breast with the charred ends.
The Arunndta singe the infant’s hair with a fire-stick and rub the skin over with charcoal to bring about a darkening of the colour as speedily as possible.
In the same way as girl-piccaninnies are assigned to their tribal husbands before even they are born, according to certain group-relationships, so are the boys of the Port George IV district apportioned by the same law to the old men, whom they must obey, when called upon, throughout the term of the elders’ lives.
An aboriginal gin is often charged with callousness towards her offspring. Such an accusation, apart from proving the informant’s ignorance, amounts to a slanderous injustice. The aboriginal mother is as fondly attached to her babe as most white women are to theirs, and the way she can endear herself to it is pathetic. The men, too, exercise a chivalrous and honourable guardianship over the innocents of their tribe as well as over the children of any white settlers, who happen to reside in their district. Those who have lived among the Australian natives, like the northern squatters, know only too well that under ordinary circumstances their children could not be in safer custody than when entrusted to the care of the aborigines.
An infant is never clothed. On Sunday Island a single strand of human hair-string is tied around its hips and pubes. Such is, of course, in the first place to decorate the body, and secondly to charm away the evil-bringing spirits which may surround it.
To bring warmth to an infant during the night, it is cuddled by its mother or other near relative; during the day, when the mother’s hands are otherwise occupied, a piccaninny is often kept snug in its bark-cradle by bedding it upon, and sprinkling it with, warm ashes.
A child is not weaned until it is at least three or four years old; at times it is kept at the breast for even a year or more longer. Nevertheless, a mixed diet is offered the suckling very early in life; one often sees a baby, but a month or two old, vigorously sucking the smooth head-end of a big bone and apparently thoroughly enjoying the treat.