The Aborigines of Australia

by R.N. Richard Sadleir

Their government is domestic. They highly respect fathers. When they saw respect paid to the Governor, they entitled him Be-anna, Father. On the death of a father, the nearest of kin assumes the office, under the title of Be-anna.

Each family had a particular residence and name to distinguish it. Those on the south side of Botany Bay were called Gweagal, and those on the north side were Cam-mer-ray-gal. To this tribe belonged the privilege of extracting the tooth for the tribes inhabiting the sea-coast.

As to religion, there appears an idea of a future state. They neither worship sun, moon, nor stars. Bennillong, who had been in England, said after death they went to the clouds; they ascended like little children, first having perched on trees, living on fish.

The young men often attended worship in the settlement, imitating the clergyman with his book, being great mimics.

They knew the distinction between good and bad. The sting-ray was bad; the kangaroo good; cannibalism they condemned as Wee-re (bad); also murder, for which they required satisfaction.

Both sexes wear ornaments, both being adorned with scars over the body, using a profusion of fat on their persons. The women ornament themselves with strings of teeth and bones of some of the fishes. Women have the two first joints of the little finger of the left hand cut off. Some in colour are as black as negroes; others copper-coloured like Malays. Their huts are miserable sheets of bark, under which they sleep, huddled together. Their mode of living is not over cleanly. The food is mostly fish; the men spear and the women catch with hooks made out of the oyster-shell, and the fishing-lines from the bark of a tree.

Marriage is rather rude; the woman is dragged away by force, but there are many particulars about marriage as to relationship, &c., &c.

In child-birth one female is employed in pouring cold water over the abdomen; another ties a piece of line to the sufferer’s neck, and takes the end in her mouth, rubbing her lips until they bleed; no further assistance is given. The mother walks about collecting wood a few hours after delivery. The child at six weeks receives a name from some object, either bird, fish, or animal. From the earliest age the boys practise at throwing the spear and other weapons. At the ages of eight to sixteen the children undergo the operation termed Gnah-noong, that is, of piercing the septum of the nose so as to receive a bone or reed; and the lads, at a later period, of having the tooth knocked out. This is a very imposing ceremony. Numbers collect on these occasions, mostly males; they dance and are armed; the boys are seized and put in a sitting posture all night, and some mystic rites are performed over them; the carrahdis pretend great agony, and roll on the ground, until at length they are delivered of a bone; the people crawl on their hands and knees to where the boys are sitting, when they throw sand and dirt upon them; one man carries a kangaroo skin stuffed with straw, another carries brush-wood, others sing, while others again make artificial tails of grass, and then leap like kangaroos, scratching and jumping emblematic of a future chase; each then casts off the artificial tail, seizes a boy, and places him on his shoulder until they reach where they are to be deposited, while the men lie down upon the ground and the boys walk over them, the former making various gestures and grimaces. The bone is then rubbed down like a chisel, so as to scarify the gums. The small end of a stick is then applied to the tooth and struck with a stone; the tooth being dislodged and the gum closed, the devotee is then encompassed with a girdle, wooden sword, and a ligature bound round the head, in which is stuck slips of grass-tree. The boy is not allowed to speak or eat during the operation; the people make most hideous noises in the ears of the sufferers to drown their cries; the patient sits on the shoulders of the man, who receives the blood which flows down from the mouth.

The youths are now admissible to the classes of men, and are privileged to use the spear and club, &c.

The shedding of blood is always followed by punishment, the offender being obliged to stand the ceremony of spears being thrown at him; a native murdered must be avenged.