Aboriginal Australian Love
Romantic Affliction
Henry Theophilus Finck
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_ Here, as in several of the alleged cases of African sentimentality, we see the great need of caution and detective sagacity in interpreting facts. To take another instance: Westermarck, in his search for cases of romantic attachment and absorbing passion among savages, fancies he has come across one in Australia, for he tells us that "even the rude Australian girl sings in a strain of romantic affliction--
'I never shall see my darling again.'" As a matter of fact this line has no more to do with the "true monogamous instinct, the absorbing passion for one," than with Julius Caesar. Eyre relates that when Miago, the first native who ever quitted Perth, was taken away on the _Beagle_ in 1838, his _mother_ sang during his absence:
Whither does that lone ship wander,
My young son I shall never see again.
Grosse, who often sides with Westermarck, here parts company with him, being convinced that
"what is called love in Australia ... is no spiritual
affection, but a sensual passion, which is quickly
cooled in the enjoyment.... The only examples of
_sympathetic_ lyrics that have been found in Australia
are mourning songs, and even they relate only to
relatives by blood and tribal affinity" (_B.A.,_
244)[179].
[FOOTNOTE 179:
Gerland (VI., 756) makes the same mistake here as Westermarck. He also refers to Petermann's _Mittheilungen_ for another case of "romantic love." On consulting that periodical (1856, 451) I find that the proof of such love lay in the circumstance that in the quarrels so common in Australian camps, wives would not hesitate to join in and help their husbands!] _