The well-known instrument called the boomerang is Australian, and it is, perhaps, exclusively so.
Circumcision is an Australian practice—a practice common to certain Polynesians and Negroes, besides—to say nothing of the Jews and Mahometans.
The recognition of the maternal rather than the paternal descent is Australian. Children take the name of their mother. What other points it has in common with the Malabar polyandria has yet to be ascertained.
When an Australian dies, those words which are identical with his name, or (in case of compounds) with any part of it, cease to be used; and some synonym is adopted instead; just as if, in England, whenever a Mr. Smith departed this life, the parish to which he belonged should cease to talk of blacksmiths, and say forgemen, forgers, or something equally respectful to the deceased, instead. This custom re-appears in Polynesia, and in South America; Dobrizhoffer's account of[219] the Abiponian custom being as follows:—The "Abiponian language is involved in new difficulties by a ridiculous custom which the savages have of continually abolishing words common to the whole nation, and substituting new ones in their stead. Funeral rites are the origin of this custom. The Abipones do not like that anything should remain to remind them of the dead. Hence appellative words bearing any affinity with the names of the deceased are presently abolished. During the first years that I spent amongst the Abipones, it was usual to say Hegmalkam kahamátek, when will there be a slaughtering of oxen? On account of the death of some Abipon, the word Kahamátek was interdicted, and, in its stead, they were all commanded by the voice of a crier to say, Hegmalkam négerkatà? The word nihirenak, a tiger, was exchanged for apanigehak; peû, a crocodile, for Kaeprhak, and Kaáma, Spaniards, for Rikil, because these words bore some resemblance to the names of Abipones lately deceased. Hence it is that our vocabularies are so full of blots occasioned by our having such frequent occasions to obliterate interdicted words, and insert new ones."
The following custom is Australian, and it belongs to a class which should always be noticed when found. This is because it appears and re-appears[220] in numerous parts of the world, in different forms, and, apparently, independent of ethnological affinities.
A family selects some natural object as its symbol, badge, or armorial bearing.
All natural objects of the same class then become sacred; i.e., the family which has adopted, respects them also.
The modes of showing this respect are various. If the object be an animal, it is not killed; if a plant, not plucked.
The native term for the object thus chosen is Kobong.
A man cannot marry a woman of the same Kobong.