This last assertion is not strictly accurate. There are other
occasions when women take the law into their hands, especially when
men try to steal them, an every-day occurrence, at least in former
times. Thus W.H. Leigh writes of the South Australians (152):
"Their manner of courtship is one which would not be
popular among English ladies. If a chief, or any other
individual, be smitten by a female of a different
tribe, he endeavors to waylay her; and if she be
surprised in any quiet place, the ambushed lover rushes
upon her, beats her about the head with his waddy till
she becomes senseless, when she is dragged in triumph
to his hut. It sometimes happens, however, that she has
a thick skull, and resents his blows, when a battle
ensues, and not unfrequently ends in the discomfiture
of the Adonis."
Similarly G.B. Wilkinson describes how the young men go, usually in
groups of two or three, to capture brides of hostile tribes. They lurk
about in concealment till they see that the women are alone, when they
pounce upon them and, either by persuasion or blows, take away those
they want; whereupon they try to regain their own tribe before pursuit
can be attempted. "This stealing of wives is one cause of the frequent
wars that take place amongst the natives."
Barrington's _History of New South Wales_ is adorned with the picture
of a big naked man having beside him, on her back, a beautifully
formed naked girl whom he is dragging away by one arm. The monster, we
read in the text, has come upon her unawares, clubbed her on the head
and other parts of the body,
"then snatching up one of her arms, he drags her,
streaming with blood from her wounds, through the
woods, over stones, rocks, hills, and logs, with all
the violence and determination of a savage," etc.
Curr (I., 237) objects to this picture as a gross exaggeration. He
also declares (I., 108) that it is only on rare occasions that a wife
is captured from another tribe and carried off, and that at present
woman-stealing is not encouraged, as it is apt to involve a whole
tribe in war for one man's sake. From older writers, however, one gets
the impression that wife-stealing was a common custom. Howitt (351)
remarks concerning the "wild white man" William Buckley, who lived
many years among the natives, and whose adventures were written up by
John Morgan, that at first sight his statements "seem to record merely
a series of duels and battles about women who were stolen, speared,
and slaughtered;" and Brough Smyth (77) quotes John Bulmer, who says
that among the Gippsland natives
"sometimes a man who has no sister [to swap] will, in
desperation, steal a wife; but this is invariably a
cause of bloodshed. Should a woman object to go with
her husband, violence would be used. I have seen a man
drag away a woman by the hair of her head. Often a club
is used until the poor creature is frightened into
submission."
In South Australia there is a special expression for
bride-stealing--_Milla mangkondi,_ or force-marriage. (Bonwick, 65.)
Mitchell (I., 307) also observed that the possession of the women
"seems to be associated with all their ideas of fighting." The same
impression is conveyed by the writings of Salvado, Wilkes, and
others--Sturt, _e.g._, who wrote (II., 283) that the abduction of a
married or unmarried woman was a frequent cause of quarrel. Mitchell
(I., 330) relates that when some whites told a native that they had
killed a native of another tribe, his first thought and only remark
was, "Stupid white fellows! Why did you not bring away the gins
(women)?" It is unfortunate for a woman to possess the kind of
"beauty" Australians admire for, as Grey says (II., 231),
"The early life of a young woman at all celebrated for
beauty is generally one continued series of captivity
to different masters, of ghastly wounds, of wanderings
in strange families, of rapid flights, of bad treatment
from other females amongst whom she is brought a
stranger by her captor; and rarely do you see a form of
unusual grace and elegance but it is marked and scarred
by the furrows of old wounds; and many a female thus
wanders several hundred miles from the home of her
infancy."
It is not only from other and hostile tribes that these men forcibly
appropriate girls or married women. Among the Hunter River tribes
(Curr, III., 353), "men renowned as warriors frequently attacked their
inferiors in strength and took their wives from them." The Queensland
natives, we are told by Narcisse Peltier, who lived among them
seventeen years, "not unfrequently fight with spears for the
possession of a woman" (Spencer, _P.S._, I., 601). Lumholtz says (184)
that "the majority of the young men wait a long time before they get
wives, partly for the reason that they have not the courage to fight
the requisite duel for one with an older man." On another page (212)
he relates:
"Near Herbert Vale I had the good fortune to be able to
witness a marriage among the blacks. A camp of natives
was just at the point of breaking up, when an old man
suddenly approached a woman, seized her by the wrist of
her left hand and shouted _Yongul ngipa_!--that is,
This one belongs to me (literally 'one I'). She
resisted with feet and hands, and cried, but he dragged
her off, though she made resistance during the whole
time and cried at the top of her voice. For a mile away
we could hear her shrieks.... But the women always make
resistance, for they do not like to leave their tribe,
and in many instances they have the best of reasons for
kicking their lovers. If a man thinks he is strong
enough, he will take hold of any woman's hand and utter
his _yongul ngipa_. If a woman is good-looking, all the
men want her, and the one who is most influential, or
who is the strongest, is accordingly generally the
victor."