Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

;378 AUSTEALASIA.Australian languages on the ground of a few common points of resemblance, butthese attempts have not proved very successful, often yielding the most contradictoryresults. In any case the Tasmanian idioms, of which a few vocabularies areextant, are regarded as forming an independent group.The islanders themselveswere evidently of a different stock, and much more closely allied to the Melanesiansthan to their Australian neighbours.To the great physical differences of the aborigines correspond moral traits ofa no less divergent order.Hence the varying and even contradictory reports ofobservers, some of whom vaunt their native pride, courage, and respect for theirpledged word, while others describe them as cowards, Hars, and traitors. One ofthe most common charges urged against them is their cruel and oppressive treatmentof the women, and in most communities this accusation is only too wellfounded.Instances are not lacking of women who have acquired a certain moral ascendancyin the tribe, but as a rule they fare little better than slaves. Not only arethey forbidden to eat in the presence of men, but many kinds offood are deniedthem, while they are required to show in speech and attitude a sort of adorationtowards their masters, the least inattention being visited with the severest castigation.The husband may kill and even burn his wife, her friends and relationsbeing powerless to interfere on her behalf. He may throw her body to his dogs,because the wife is his property, which he has the right to use or abuse at hispleasure.Nevertheless, traces still survive in Australia of a primitive matriarchalsystem, and even now name, kinship, rank, and fortune are for the most parttransmitted through the female line.Polygamy prevails amongst the native populations, and in the north-westerndistricts cases occur of powerful tribesmen acquiring as many as ten wives. Insome communities exogamy is strictly observed, all marriages contracted withwomen of the same class being regarded as incestuous, yet amongst others unionsbetween near relatives are held in honour.In one place marriages are effected bya real or simulated abduction, in another the only formality is the payment of thecontract price.This purchase of the women by the strong and wealthy members of the communityhas the effect of condemning the poor and the young men to a state ofcelibacy, or obliging them to put up with the divorced wives of their elders.dearth of wives amongst most Australian populations is all the greater that thewomen are far less numerous than the men ; not, however, because female birthsare rarer, as has been asserted, but because during their short existence thewomen are exposed to many more dangers, such as premature confinement, excessivehardships, bad treatment, night attacks, and the like. Amongst many tribesinfanticide is common, and as a rule it is the girls who are removed either by beingburied uHve or knocked on the head immediately after birth.Children who survive the perils of infancy are treated with much kindnessthey are never beaten and grow up freely to man's estate, following their elders tothe chase and war.- Nevertheless they have to undergo the severe trials of theThe