One of the first explorers of the desert interior was Eyre (1839). His
experiences--covering ten years--led him to speak (378) of "the
illicit and almost unlimited intercourse between the sexes." "Marriage
is not looked upon as any pledge of chastity; indeed, no such virtue
is recognized" (319). "Many of the native dances are of a grossly
licentious character." Men rarely get married before they are
twenty-five, but that does not mean that they are continent. From
their thirteenth year they have promiscuous intercourse with girls who
abandon themselves at the age of ten, though they rarely become
mothers before they are sixteen.[155]
Another early explorer of the interior (1839), T.L. Mitchell, gives
this glimpse of aboriginal morality (I., 133):
"The natives ... in return for our former disinterested
kindness, persisted in their endeavors to introduce us
very particularly to their women. They ordered them to
come up, divested of their cloaks and bags, and placed
them before us. Most of the men appeared to possess
two, the pair in general consisting of a fat plump gin
and one much younger. Each man placed himself before
his gins, and bowing forward with a shrug, the hands
and arms being thrown back pointing to each gin, as if
to say, Take which you please. The females, on their
part, evinced no apprehension, but seemed to regard us
as beings of a race so different, without the slightest
indication of either fear, aversion, or surprise. Their
looks were rather expressive of a ready acquiescence in
the proffered kindness of the men, and when at length
they brought a sable nymph _vis-a-vis_ to Mr. White, I
could preserve my gravity no longer, and throwing the
spears aside, I ordered the bullock-drivers to
proceed."
George Grey, who, during his two exploring expeditions into
Northwestern and Western Australia, likewise came in contact with the
"uncontaminated" natives, found that, though "a spear through the calf
of the leg is the least punishment that awaits" a faithless wife if
detected, and sometimes the death-penalty is inflicted, yet "the
younger women were much addicted to intrigue" (I., 231, 253), as
indeed they appear to be throughout the continent, as we shall see
presently.
Of all Australian institutions none is more characteristic than the
corrobborees or nocturnal dances which are held at intervals by the
various tribes all over the continent, and were of course held
centuries before a white man was ever seen on the continent; and no
white man in his wildest nightmare ever dreamt of such scenes as are
enacted at them. They are given preferably by moonlight, are apt to
last all night, and are often attended by the most obscene and
licentious practices. The corrobboree, says Curr (I., 92), was
undoubtedly "often an occasion of licentiousness and atrocity";
fights, even wars, ensue, "and almost invariably as the result of
outrages on women." The songs heard at these revels are sometimes
harmless and the dances not indecent, says the Rev. G. Taplin (37),
"but at other times the songs will consist of the vilest
obscenity. I have seen dances which were the most disgusting
displays of obscene gesture possible to be imagined, and
although I stood in the dark alone, and nobody knew I was
there, I felt ashamed to look upon such abominations.... The
dances of the women are very immodest and lewd."
John Mathew (in Curr, III., 168) testifies regarding the corrobborees
of the Mary Eiver tribes that
"the representations were rarely free from obscenity,
and on some occasions indecent gestures were the main
parts of the action. I have seen a structure formed of
huge forked sticks placed upright in the ground, the
forks upward, with saplings reaching from fork to fork,
and boughs laid over all. This building was part of the
machinery for a corrobboree, at a certain stage of
which the males, who were located on the roof, rushed
down among the females, who were underneath and handled
them licentiously."[156]