There is some quaint local color in Australian courtship, but usually
blows play too important a role to make their procedure acceptable to
anyone with a less waddy-proof skull than an Australian. Spencer and
Gillen relate (556) that in cases of charming, the initiative is
sometimes taken by the woman,
"who can, of course, imagine that she has been charmed,
and then find a willing aider and abettor in the man
whose vanity is flattered by this response to his magic
power, which he can soon persuade himself that he did
really exercise; besides which, an extra wife has its
advantages in the way of procuring food and saving him
trouble, while, if his other women object, the matter
is one which does not hurt him, for it can easily be
settled once and for all by a stand-up fight between
the women and the rout of the loser."
Quaintly Australian are the following details of Kurnai courtship
given by Howitt:
"Sometimes it might happen that the young men were
backward. Perhaps there might be several young girls
who ought to be married, and the women had then to take
the matter in hand when some eligible young men were at
camp. They consulted, and some went out in the forest
and with sticks killed some of the little birds, the
yeerung. These they brought back to the camp and
casually showed them to some of the men; then there was
an uproar. The men were very angry. The yeerungs, their
brothers, had been killed! The young men got sticks;
the girls took sticks also, and they attacked each
other. Heavy blows were struck, heads were broken, and
blood flowed, but no one stopped them.
"Perhaps this light might last a quarter of an hour,
then they separated. Some even might be left on the
ground insensible. Even the men and women who were
married joined in the free fight. The next day the
young men, the brewit, went, and in their turn killed
some of the women's 'sisters,' the birds djeetgun, and
the consequence was that on the following day there was
a worse fight than before. It was perhaps a week or two
before the wounds and bruises were healed. By and by,
some day one of the eligible young men met one of the
marriageable young women; he looked at her, and said
'Djeetgun!' She said 'Yeerung! What does the yeerung
eat?' The reply was, 'He eats so-and-so,' mentioning
kangaroo, opossum, or emu, or some other game. Then
they laughed, and she ran off with him without telling
anyone."