The Aborigines of Australia

by R.N. Richard Sadleir

We have in these particulars strong evidence that the savages are upon the descending scale; while from the remains of animals that once inhabited the country, we have another evidence that in all these kingdoms there is a retrogression rather than a progression, except where man is elevated by copying and improving on the arts of nature to a certain extent in painting, architecture, statuary, &c., or where Christianity has elevated the human race. And so it is with these natives who have embraced Christianity; they build houses and churches, read, write, and learn agriculture, and thereby rise above the common degeneration.

In fact, the very ruins of past nations show that mankind has sprung from an intellectual source and gradually descended, as with all the Eastern nations, and more so in social proportion as they lost the knowledge of the true God. The very licentiousness under heathen dominion, and the very cruelties of heathen rites, the degradation of the female sex, and constant wars, have all a downward tendency. So that however high Greece and Rome rose, they had within them the germs of decay. Hence the value of missions for conveying civilization and moral exaltation, renewing as it were the life of man upon the earth, regenerating humanity.

The Bishop of Perth, in his appeal on behalf of the aborigines, says:⁠—“The darkness of ignorance is dark indeed, but far darker is their state when to the darkness of ignorance has been added the degradation of the chequered vices of civilization, the consciousness of being treated and held as serfs of a race above them, while all illumination of soul or conscience has been denied them. The primitive state of these people was far better than their present debauched, degraded, perishing condition.”

The Bishop says that in the Roebourne District, which has now been for some years occupied with cattle and sheep for some 300 miles along the coast, there is a population of nearly 2,000 aborigines. The majority of them are in the employ of the settlers, either on their stations or the pearl fisheries, of which the port of Cossack is the centre, while, in the Gascoyne and newly discovered Kimberley Districts the natives are very numerous, although mostly in their wild state. They are, through the Northern Districts, a fine, intelligent, able-bodied race, and when, as in the Roebourne District, they have been brought into the employment of the settlers, have proved valuable as shepherds, shearers, and divers. A solitary lady (the only labourer) it appears has gathered a few native children about her for instruction.

The Bishop then enters into the question of missions. Says he has £500 in hand, also £500 promised, hopes to obtain collections, and that the Government has promised every assistance in its power, such as reserves of land and pecuniary aid. There is therefore some promise of commencement here.

While they allow polygamy, they do not permit marriages within a certain descent, and it is a crime worthy of death to marry one of the wrong sort; the distinction of tribes by name is the distinction of marriage. Ippai may marry Kapota or any Ippata but his own sister, Murri may marry Buta only, Kumbo may marry Mata only. An infraction of these laws is death. Marriage is not conducted, as generally represented, as a forcible act, at least not in all the tribes. The female is given in marriage at an early age (ten or twelve years old). It is a kind of exchange; the man who obtains a wife promises to give his sister or other relative in exchange; the parties may never have seen each other.

These marriages are always of different tribes. During the ceremony the relatives camp apart. A man takes a fire-stick and conducts the bride into the midst of the parties and gives her away, walking silently away with downcast looks. As soon as they approach the hut is given up. The bride and bridegroom are placed near each other, and the relatives take their places. The party generally fall asleep; at daybreak the bride leaves the hut for her friends, and in the evening is conducted to her husband by their female friends; the tribes then separate and return to their various districts. The man is bound to provide animal food, the wife vegetables, if she pleases. The husband rubs her over with grease to improve her appearance. If there are several wives they seldom agree, continually quarrelling, and are regarded more as slaves, being employed to the husband’s advantage. The woman who leaves with her own consent to live with a man without the consent of her relations, is regarded as a prostitute and exposed to taunts. The sale of wives is frequent, for either money, clothes, weapons, &c. Woman gives consent by carrying fire to her husband’s wurley and making his fire; an unwilling wife will say, “I never made fire in his wurley.” The eldest wife is always regarded as mistress of the hut. Marriages take place after dark, and are always celebrated with great dancing and singing; sometimes licentiousness takes place, but there are as loving couples as amongst Europeans.

Many old men have three and four wives, while the young continue bachelors; the long suckling of children and infanticide both tend to keep down population.

Women near their confinement retire to be attended by women and to be secluded. After birth, the husband attends on his wife, and often nurses the infant, which, if spared, is most affectionately watched over; but infanticide is very common, so much so that nearly one-half to one-third of the infants are destroyed, and that in a shocking manner. Red hot embers are stuffed into the child’s ears, and the orifice is closed with sand, and then the body is burnt; sometimes a waddy is resorted to. If there be twins, or malformation, or illegitimate children, they are generally destroyed.

When native children are born, they are nearly as white as Europeans. Girls have children at the early age of fourteen. The girls wear an apron of fringe until they bear their first child, and if they have no child, the husband burns the apron, probably as an exposure.