_ Eyre's assertion regarding chastity, that "no such virtue is recognized," has already been quoted, and is borne out by testimony of many other writers. In the Dieyerie tribe "each married woman is permitted a paramour." (Curr, II., 46.) Taplin says of the Narrinyeri (16, 18) that boys are not allowed to marry until their beard has grown a certain length; "but they are allowed the abominable privilege of promiscuous intercourse with the younger portion of the other sex." A.W. Howitt describes[158] a strange kind of group marriage prevalent among the Dieri and kindred tribes, the various couples being allotted to each other by the council of elder men without themselves being consulted as to their preferences. During the ensuing festivities, however, "there is for about four hours a general license in camp as regards" the couples thus "married." Meyer says of the Encounter Bay tribes that if a man from another tribe arrives having anything which a native desires to purchase, "he perhaps makes a bargain to pay by letting him have one of his wives for a longer or shorter period." Angas (I., 93) refers to the custom of lending wives. In Victoria the natives have a special name for the custom of lending one of their wives to young men who have none. Sometimes they are thus lent for a month at a time.[159] As we shall presently see, one reason why Australian men marry is to have the means of making friends by lending their wives to others. The custom of allowing friends to share the husband's privileges was also widely prevalent.
[FOOTNOTE 158:
_Journal Anthrop. Inst._, XX., 53.]
[FOOTNOTE 159:
_Revue d'Anthropologie_. 1882, p. 376.]
In New South Wales and about Riverina, says Brough Smyth (II., 316),
"in any instance where the abduction [of a woman] has
taken place by a party of men for the benefit of some
one individual, each of the members of the party
claims, as a right, a privilege which the intended
husband has no power to refuse."
Curr informs us (I., 128) that if a woman resist her husband's orders to give herself up to another man she is "either speared or cruelly beaten." Fison (303) believes that the lending of wives to visitors was looked on not as a favor but a duty--a right which the visitor could claim; and Howitt showed that in the native gesture language there was a special sign for this custom--"a peculiar folding of the hands," indicating "either a request or an offer, according as it is used by the guest or the host."[160] Concerning Queensland tribes Roth says:
"If an aboriginal requires a woman temporarily for
venery he either borrows a wife from her husband for a
night or two in exchange for boomerangs, a shield,
food, etc., or else violates the female when
unprotected, when away from the camp out in the bush.
In the former case the husband looks upon the matter as
a point of honor to oblige his friend, the greatest
compliment that can be paid him, provided that
permission is previously asked. On the other hand, were
he to refuse he has the fear hanging over him that the
petitioner might get a death-bone pointed at him--and
so, after all, his apparent courtesy may be only
Hobson's choice. In the latter case, if a married
woman, and she tells her husband, she gets a hammering,
and should she disclose the delinquent, there will
probably be a fight, and hence she usually keeps her
mouth shut; if a single woman, or of any paedomatronym
other than his own, no one troubles himself about the
matter. On the other hand, death by the spear or club
is the punishment invariably inflicted by the camp
council collectively for criminally assaulting any
blood relative, group-sister (_i.e._, a female member
of the same paedomatronym) or young woman that has not
yet been initiated into the first degree."
[FOOTNOTE 160:
A.W. Howitt, _Jour. Anthr. Hist._ XX., 60-61. Fison and Howitt, 289; _Smithsonian Reports_, 1883, p. 67. Details are given which cannot be reproduced here. Boys participate in these orgies.]
The last sentence would indicate that these tribes are not so indifferent to chastity as the other natives; but the information given by Roth (who for three years was surgeon-general to the Boulia, Cloncurry and Normanton hospitals) dispels such an illusion most radically.[161]
[FOOTNOTE 161:
The details given by Roth are too disgusting for reproduction here. They vie with the loathsome practices of the Kaffirs and the most debauched Roman emperors, while some of them are so vile that it seems as if they could have been suggested only by the diseased brain of an erotomaniac. The most degraded white criminal that ever took up his abode among savages would turn away from them with horror and nausea, yet we are asked to believe that the savages learned all their vices from the whites!] _