AN ABORIGINAL’S BIRTH
Recognition of pending maternity—Peculiar beliefs in
connection with the cause of pregnancy—Larrekiya legend
and maternal dietary—Maiyarra’s accouchement—Birth—Twin
births—After-treatment—Artificial termination of
pregnancy—Preparing the new-born—Children’s lot decided by
peculiar group-relationships—Parents’ affection—Children
unclothed—How they are kept warm and reared—Different methods
of carrying and nursing children.
It had been talked among the old men for some time past that the lubra
Maiyarra was giving cause for suspicion. Her husband Pitjala agreed; to
his knowledge there had been no occasion for her to leave his camp for
some moons past. His mother, old Indarrakutta, had told him that when
she and Maiyarra were gathering roots down by the Womma waterhole, many
of the gum trees were covered with manna and they partook freely of the
sweet meal, which, as he knew, does not often come to their district.
The old woman had cautioned the girl and growled at her when she did not
obey, because she knew Maiyarra was of the Yalliadni clan and should not
be allowed to eat the manna. This disobedient gin had, however, not eaten
much before she became sick and was obliged to lie in the hot sand of the
creek where the bullrushes stand. Indarrakutta had stood aghast, Pitjala
explained to the old men, when unexpectedly disturbing a snake from the
bullrushes, she observed that the creature, in gliding over the ground,
touched the body of Maiyarra with its tail and, in its great haste to
disappear, had left portion of its glossy slough beside her. “_Yakai_,”
gasped the men, as if from a single mouth, “then it is clear the ever
wakeful spirit of Womma has caught the neglectful Maiyarra sleeping and
it is certain she is with child.”
Such was the history of the case as narrated to us. It corroborated
previous observations from central and northern tribes. The recognition
of maternity is not connected primarily with any conjugal liberties a
husband or number of tribal husbands may be privileged to enjoy, but
more with the recollection of any accidental contact with an object by
which it is supposed a spirit child can enter the body of a woman. The
spiritual ingress may take place in a variety of ways, but as often as
not it is believed to be by means of a hollow object of some description.
In the present instance it was a snakeskin. On the Victoria River the
gins have a dread of the whirlwind, thinking that if such should pass
over one of them, a spirit child would immediately enter the woman. In
the Cambridge Gulf country, young women very reluctantly go into a water
hole in which lilies are growing, fearing that as they step over the
leaves, which are hollow, a similar fate may overtake them.
In the ancestral days of the Larrekiya in the Port Darwin district, for
instance, it is believed that a baby boy was once seen to spring from
the burrow of a rabbit bandicoot; whence he had come no one knew. He was
invited to come to the Larrekiya camp and live with them, but he refused.
Some time after, when the boy had become a man, he was again met by
the tribe, who once more invited him to their camp; but he declined as
before. Thereupon the men became angry and dragged him to a waterhole,
and threw him in. The stranger immediately sank, and five bubbles of air
rose to the surface as he disappeared. The men sat down and watched the
water, when suddenly the man’s face reappeared. The Larrekiya hurled a
spear at him, and he was killed because they knew he had no father and no
mother and was the accomplice of the evil spirit, who, it is asserted by
the Wogait, makes a big fire, from the smoke of which he takes an infant
and places it, at night, into the womb of a lubra; and she must then give
birth to the child.
In the same district, when it becomes known that a happy event is
pending, the husband goes out with his lubra and kills a certain animal
or collects certain vegetable products, which he hands to the woman
to eat, believing that these articles when swallowed will ensure a
successful birth.
To return to our story: Maiyarra was groaning with pains in the abdomen.
She was alone with the old woman Indarrakutta, who was her mother-in-law,
well beyond hearing distance from the main camp. A small fire was burning
sluggishly by their side and throwing a thin column of bluish white smoke
into the air. Maiyarra was sitting upon a small patch of ground cleared
of the burrs, with her legs stretched before her. She was propping
her writhing body, sloping slightly backwards, with her arms against
the ground. The old woman sat closely behind, with her arms thrown
around Maiyarra’s waist, and with her lower limbs, bent in the knee,
enclosing and pressing against the younger woman’s buttocks on either
side. Occasionally the old woman would relinquish her hold and make for
the fire, over which she warmed her hands to subsequently massage the
patient’s abdomen. Now and then she might even rub warm ashes over it.
Then the two sat in patient expectation, and, whenever there came a pain,
the old woman would tighten her grip, while she spoke encouragingly
to the parturient Maiyarra. This method is very generally employed,
except that when the final stage has arrived, the Arunndta and other
neighbouring tribes in central Australia request the gin to squat on her
toes, with her buttocks resting over her heels.
The event is almost invariably spontaneous. In my experience I have very
rarely seen complications, and then usually when the lubra has been
living under civilized conditions.
Twins are very exceptionally seen; we do not mean to imply, however, that
multiple births do not occur more often than one sees or hears of. No
authentic observations are available to satisfy our curiosity in regard
to this point. We have been repeatedly assured that when twins are born,
one has arrived as the result of the evil spirit’s witchcraft. The child,
one is informed, will do no good for itself, and, on account of the evil
within it, it will contaminate others with whom it comes into contact,
and, if it were allowed to grow up, it would be in league with the evil
spirit, whom it would look upon as a brother, and to whom it would betray
all the tribal secrets. The evil spirit would carry this information
to the enemy and their tribe would surely be wiped out of existence.
In consequence of all this, the suspected one of the two infants is
destroyed, usually by one of the old women in attendance, who places a
red-hot coal in its mouth or smothers it with sand.
The placenta is waited for, and then the umbilical cord is severed two
or three inches from the child’s abdomen in one of the following ways:
It may be twisted off, cut with a sharp fragment of shell or splinter of
rock, or pinched off with the finger-nails, or even bitten off with the
teeth. Another method is to batter it through with a stone, after which
the small remaining portion is packed with warm ashes. When it falls off,
it is tied around the child’s neck with a piece of fur-string, where it
is worn for a while as an amulet. The placenta is either burned or buried.
Intentional interferences with pregnancy are rare among the
unsophisticated tribes, but rather frequent when the natives are living
under more civilized conditions. At Fowler’s Bay a gin, who wishes to rid
herself of prospective motherhood, collects a number of black beetles,
known as “_yarralyi_,” which she roasts and reduces to powder. Of the
powder she rubs some into her armpits, and some over her breasts and
pubes.
[Illustration: _PLATE VIII_
Old Kai-Kai, the leading medicine man of the western Arunndta.
“The medicine man is not so much an individual who has the knowledge
of medicinal values of herbs and surgical practices as one who is the
recognized sorcerer....”
(Note also the emu-feather skull cap, light-wood shield, and
“_Kutturu_.”)]
The newly-born infant, as it lies upon the sand, is rubbed all over and
dried with ashes; then it is usually transferred to a sheet of bark or
a trough-shaped bark food-carrier, in which it is carried about during
the first few months of its existence, the mother, at feeding time and
other odd moments, taking it up into her arms. On Sunday Island the bark
food-carrier, there known as “_oladda_,” is used as a cradle; one often
might see a busy mother, attending to duties which occupy her hands,
putting her child to sleep by simultaneously rocking the receptacle
containing it with her foot (Plate XI).
The Aluridja smear ochre, ashes, and fat over the body to protect it
against the hot wind and the flies. Some of the south-eastern tribes, now
practically extinct, did likewise.
Among the Kolaias near Cambridge Gulf the common practice is to apply
mother’s milk to the infant’s body and sprinkle it with charcoal.
In their endeavour to make a young mother’s breast as productive as
possible, the Aluridja and Arunndta burn sticks of the mulga and stroke
the breast with the charred ends.
The Arunndta singe the infant’s hair with a fire-stick and rub the skin
over with charcoal to bring about a darkening of the colour as speedily
as possible.
In the same way as girl-piccaninnies are assigned to their
tribal husbands before even they are born, according to certain
group-relationships, so are the boys of the Port George IV district
apportioned by the same law to the old men, whom they must obey, when
called upon, throughout the term of the elders’ lives.
An aboriginal gin is often charged with callousness towards her
offspring. Such an accusation, apart from proving the informant’s
ignorance, amounts to a slanderous injustice. The aboriginal mother is as
fondly attached to her babe as most white women are to theirs, and the
way she can endear herself to it is pathetic. The men, too, exercise a
chivalrous and honourable guardianship over the innocents of their tribe
as well as over the children of any white settlers, who happen to reside
in their district. Those who have lived among the Australian natives,
like the northern squatters, know only too well that under ordinary
circumstances their children could not be in safer custody than when
entrusted to the care of the aborigines.
An infant is never clothed. On Sunday Island a single strand of human
hair-string is tied around its hips and pubes. Such is, of course, in
the first place to decorate the body, and secondly to charm away the
evil-bringing spirits which may surround it.
To bring warmth to an infant during the night, it is cuddled by its
mother or other near relative; during the day, when the mother’s
hands are otherwise occupied, a piccaninny is often kept snug in its
bark-cradle by bedding it upon, and sprinkling it with, warm ashes.
A child is not weaned until it is at least three or four years old;
at times it is kept at the breast for even a year or more longer.
Nevertheless, a mixed diet is offered the suckling very early in life;
one often sees a baby, but a month or two old, vigorously sucking the
smooth head-end of a big bone and apparently thoroughly enjoying the
treat.
Different methods have been devised to assist the gins in carrying their
infants with as little inconvenience as possible when on the march.
When the babe is very young, the bark-carrier is indispensable; it is
either carried under the arm or cleverly balanced upon the head. In the
latter case a circular cushion or ring-pad is first placed on the head to
steady the weight.
One precaution is constantly preached to young mothers, namely, not to
allow the child’s legs to hang over the edge of the wooden carrier lest
they grow crooked.
The tribes north of the Great Australian Bight swing the infants in skins
or plaited vegetable fibre mats over their backs, the corners of the
receptacles being tied in front of the mother’s neck. The nearly extinct
tribes of the lower River Murray and surrounding districts, as far as
western Victoria, used to adopt the same method.
When the child attains a riper age it sits in the bag-shaped receptacle,
its head being the only exposed part of its body which is visible.
The natives maintain that they originally learned this dodge from the
kangaroo, which carries its young in a pouch.
When the child is a little older and has arrived at the toddling stage,
it is allowed to ride pick-a-back style upon its mother’s back, where it
secures its position by catching hold of the gin’s shoulders, neck, or
breasts. Another favourite method is for the gin to straddle the child
upon one of her hips and hold it there with her arm.
Occasionally the child sits upon either parent’s shoulders and hangs on
to the elder’s head or hair. More for the excitement created than as a
recognized way of transport, the parent, usually the father, may seat the
child upon his head and hold both his arms up for the rider to clasp.
After a short run with its father in this position, the child usually
asks to be let down again.
The most peculiar custom is that in vogue among the Wongapitcha of the
Tomkinson and other associated ranges in central Australia. The child is
laid across the small of the mother’s back, face forwards, and is kept
in a horizontal position by partly lying upon the gin’s buttocks; it is
supported by the mother’s arms, one of which is held beneath its neck,
the other beneath its knees. By adopting this method of carrying, the gin
has both her hands free. The same method is adopted during the transport
of a favourite dog, the women maintaining that it is a very comfortable
occupation in the cold weather because the animals help to keep them warm
(Plate XVI, 1).
When off duty, that is when not on the tramp, hunting, or
wood-collecting, a gin will carry, rock, and caress her offspring much
like a European mother does, by tenderly clutching it in both her arms.
If work permits, the mother often sits on the ground and lays her
offspring across her lap; by lifting her thighs towards her body, she
forms a trough, in which the babe lies most comfortably.
On the north coast one might occasionally see a gin swinging her babe
upon an aerial root or branch of a tree, or upon the flexible stalk of a
tropical climbing plant.
[Illustration: _PLATE IX_
1. Men of Kolaia tribe, Cambridge Gulf, wearing the hair tied at the back
around a pad of emu feathers.
2. Wongapitcha men wearing ornamental wooden hair-pins known as
“_elenba_.” Note charcoal rubbed over the foreheads.]