RELATIONSHIP AND MARRIAGE. DIVISION OF FAMILIES.
Traditional Laws of Relationship and Marriage.
One of the most remarkable facts connected with the natives is that they
are divided into certain great families, all the members of which bear
the same names, as a family, or second name: the principal branches of
these families, so far as I have been able to ascertain, are the:
Ballaroke
Tdondarup
Ngotak
Nagarnook
Nogonyuk
Mongalung
Narrangur.
But in different districts the members of these families give a local
name to the one to which they belong, which is understood in that
district to indicate some particular branch of the principal family. The
most common local names are:
Didaroke
Gwerrinjoke
Maleoke
Waddaroke
Djekoke
Kotejumeno
Namyungo
Yungaree.
These family names are common over a great portion of the continent; for
instance, on the Western coast, in a tract of country extending between
four and five hundred miles in latitude, members of all these families
are found. In South Australia I met a man who said that he belonged to
one of them, and Captain Flinders mentions Yungaree as the name of a
native in the gulf of Carpentaria.
LAW OF MARRIAGE.
These family names are perpetuated and spread through the country by the
operation of two remarkable laws:
1. That children of either sex always take the family name of their
mother.
2. That a man cannot marry a woman of his own family name.
COINCIDENT INSTITUTIONS AMONGST THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.
But not the least singular circumstance connected with these institutions
is their coincidence with those of the North American Indians, which are
thus stated in the Archaeologia Americana:*
Independent of political or geographical divisions, that into families or
clans has been established from time immemorial. At what time and in what
manner the division was first made is not known. At present, or till very
lately, every nation was divided into a number of clans, varying in the
several nations from three to eight or ten, the members of which
respectively were dispersed indiscriminately throughout the whole nation.
It has been fully ascertained that the inviolable regulations by which
those clans were perpetuated amongst the southern nations were, first,
that no man could marry in his own clan; secondly, that every child
belongs to his or her mother's clan. Among the Choctaws there are two
great divisions, each of which is subdivided into four clans, and no man
can marry in any of the four clans belonging to his division. The
restriction among the Cherokees, the Creeks, and the Natches, does not
extend beyond the clan to which the man belongs.
There are sufficient proofs, that the same division into clans, commonly
called tribes, exists among almost all the other Indian nations. But it
is not so clear that they are subject to the same regulations which
prevail amongst the southern Indians.
(*Footnote. Volume 2 page 109.)
...
A similar law of consanguinity seems to be inferred in Abraham's reply to
Abimelech (Genesis 20:12) And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the
daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became
my wife.
FAMILY NAMES AND SIGNS. ORIGIN OF FAMILY NAMES.
The origin of these family names is attributed by the natives to
different causes, but I think that enough is not yet known on the subject
to enable us to form an accurate opinion on this point. One origin
frequently assigned by the natives is that they were derived from some
vegetable or animal being very common in the district which the family
inhabited, and that hence the name of this animal or vegetable became
applied to the family. I have in my published vocabulary of the native
language, under each family name, given its derivations as far as I could
collect them from the statements of the natives.
But as each family adopts some animal or vegetable as their crest or
sign, or Kobong, as they call it, I imagine it more likely that these
have been named after the families than that the families have been named
after them.
SECOND COINCIDENCE.
A certain mysterious connection exists between a family and its kobong,
so that a member of the family will never kill an animal of the species
to which his kobong belongs, should he find it asleep; indeed he always
kills it reluctantly, and never without affording it a chance to escape.
This arises from the family belief that some one individual of the
species is their nearest friend, to kill whom would be a great crime, and
to be carefully avoided. Similarly a native who has a vegetable for his
kobong may not gather it under certain circumstances and at a particular
period of the year. The North American Indians have this same custom of
taking some animal as their sign. Thus it is stated in the Archaeologia
Americana:* "Each tribe has the name of some animal. Among the Hurons the
first tribe is that of the bear; the two others of the wolf and turtle.
The Iroquois nation has the same divisions, only the turtle family is
divided into two, the great and the little." And again, in speaking of
the Sioux tribes:** "Each of these derives its name from some animal,
part of an animal, or other substance which is considered as the peculiar
sacred object or medicine, as the Canadians call it, of each band
respectively." To this we may add the testimony of John Long, who
says,*** "one part of the religious superstition of the savages consists
in each of them having his totem, or favourite spirit, which he believes
watches over him. This totem they conceive assumes the shape of some
beast or other, and therefore they never kill, hunt, or eat the animal
whose form they think the totem bears."
(*Footnote. Volume 2 page 109 quoting from Charlevoix volume 3 page 266.)
(**Footnote. Ibid page 110 quoting from Major Long's Exp. volume 1
chapter 15.)
(***Footnote. Voyages and Travels page 86.)
Civilized nations, in their heraldic bearings, preserve traces of the
same custom.
BETROTHMENTS AND MARRIAGES.
Female children are always betrothed within a few days after their birth;
and from the moment they are betrothed the parents cease to have any
control over the future settlement of their child. Should the first
husband die before the girl has attained the years of puberty she then
belongs to his heir.
A girl lives with her husband at any age she pleases, no control whatever
is in this way placed upon her inclinations.
WIDOWS.
When a native dies his brother inherits his wives and children, but his
brother must be of the same family name as himself. The widow goes to her
second husband's hut three days after the death of her first.
The old men manage to keep the females a good deal amongst themselves,
giving their daughters to one another, and the more female children they
have the greater chance have they of getting another wife by this sort of
exchange; but the women have generally some favourite amongst the young
men, always looking forward to be his wife at the death of her husband.
OBLIGATIONS OF RELATIONSHIP. DIVISION OF FAMILY BRANCHES.
But a most remarkable law is that which obliges families connected by
blood upon the female side to join for the purpose of defence and
avenging crimes; and as the father marries several wives, and very often
all of different families, his children are repeatedly all divided
amongst themselves; no common bond of union exists between them, and this
custom alone would be sufficient to prevent this people ever emerging
from the savage state.
As their laws are principally made up of sets of obligations due from
members of the same great family towards one another--which obligations
of family names are much stronger than those of blood--it is evident that
a vast influence upon the manners and state of this people must be
brought about by this arrangement into classes. I therefore devoted a
great portion of my attention to this point, but the mass of materials I
have collected is so large that it would occupy much more time to arrange
it than I have been able to spare so as to do full justice to the
subject; but in order to give an accurate idea of the nature of the
enquiries I pursued I have given in the Appendix A a short genealogical
list which will show the manner in which a native gives birth to a
progeny of a totally different family name to himself; so that a district
of country never remains for two successive generations in the same
family. These observations, as well as others made with regard to the
natives, can be only considered to apply, as yet, to that portion of
Western Australia lying between the 30th and 35th parallels of south
latitude unless the contrary is expressly stated; though I think there is
strong reason to suppose that they will, in general, be found to obtain
throughout the continent.
DIFFICULTY OF PURSUING THE ENQUIRY.
It is impossible for any person not well acquainted with the language of
the natives and who does not possess great personal influence over them
to pursue an inquiry of this nature; for one of the customs most rigidly
observed and enforced amongst them is never to mention the name of a
deceased person, male or female. In an inquiry therefore which
principally turns upon the names of their ancestors this prejudice must
be every moment violated, and a very great difficulty has thus to be
encountered in the outset. The only circumstance which at all enabled me
to overcome this was that the longer a person has been dead the less
repugnance do they evince in uttering his name. I therefore in the first
instance endeavoured to ascertain only the oldest names on record; and on
subsequent occasions, when I found a native alone and in a loquacious
humour, I succeeded in filling up some of the blanks. Occasionally round
their fires at night I managed to involve them in disputes regarding
their ancestors, and on these occasions gleaned much of the information
of which I was in want.
LAWS OF LANDED PROPERTY. RIGHTS AND BOUNDARIES. PROPERTY VESTED IN
INDIVIDUALS.
Traditional Laws relative to Landed Property.
Landed property does not belong to a tribe, or to several families, but
to a single male; and the limits of his property are so accurately
defined that every native knows those of his own land, and can point out
the various objects which mark his boundary. I cannot establish the fact
and the universality of this institution better than by the following
letter addressed by Dr. Lang, the Principal of Sydney College, New South
Wales, to Dr. Hodgkin, the zealous advocate of the Aboriginal Races:*
(*Footnote. Extracted from the Reports of the Aboriginal Protection
Society.)
Liverpool, 15th November 1840.
My Dear Friend,
In reply to the question which you proposed to me some time ago in the
course of conversation in London, and of which you have reminded me in
the letter I had the pleasure of receiving from you yesterday, with the
pamphlets and letters for America, namely, Whether the Aborigines of the
Australian continent have any idea of property in land, I beg to answer
most decidedly in the affirmative. It is well known that these Aborigines
in no instance cultivate the soil, but subsist entirely by hunting and
fishing, and on the wild roots they find in certain localities
(especially the common fern) with occasionally a little wild honey;
indigenous fruits being exceedingly rare. The whole race is divided into
tribes, more or less numerous, according to circumstances, and designated
from the localities they inhabit; for although universally a wandering
race, with respect to places of habitation, their wanderings are
circumscribed by certain well-defined limits, beyond which they seldom
pass, except for purposes of war or festivity. In short, every tribe has
its own district, the boundaries of which are well known to the natives
generally; and within that district all the wild animals are considered
as much the property of the tribe inhabiting, or rather ranging on, its
whole extent, as the flocks of sheep and herds of cattle that have been
introduced into the country by adventurous Europeans are held by European
law and usage the property of their respective owners. In fact, as the
country is occupied chiefly for pastoral purposes, the difference between
the Aboriginal and the European ideas of property in the soil is more
imaginary than real, the native grass affording subsistence to the
kangaroos of the natives as well as to the wild cattle of the Europeans,
and the only difference indeed being that the former are not branded with
a particular mark like the latter, and are somewhat wilder and more
difficult to catch.
EFFECTS OF EUROPEAN APPROPRIATION.
Nay, as the European regards the intrusion of any other white man upon
the cattle-run, of which European law and usage have made him the
possessor, and gets it punished as a trespass, the Aborigines of the
particular tribe inhabiting a particular district regard the intrusion of
any other tribe of Aborigines upon that district, for the purposes of
kangaroo hunting, etc., as an intrusion to be resisted and punished by
force of arms. In short this is the frequent cause of Aboriginal, as it
is of European wars; man, in his natural state, being very much alike in
all conditions--jealous of his rights and exceedingly pugnacious. It is
true the European intruders pay no respect to these Aboriginal divisions
of the territory, the black native being often hunted off his own ground
or destroyed by European violence, dissipation, or disease, just as his
kangaroos are driven off that ground by the European's black cattle; but
this surely does not alter the case as to the right of the Aborigines.
UNIVERSALITY OF THIS CUSTOM.
But particular districts are not merely the property of particular
tribes; particular sections or portions of these districts are
universally recognised by the natives as the property of individual
members of these tribes; and when the owner of such a section or portion
of territory (as I ascertained was the case at King George's Island) has
determined on burning off the grass on his land, which is done for the
double purpose of enabling the natives to take the older animals more
easily, and to provide a new crop of sweeter grass for the rising
generation of the forest, not only all the other individuals of his own
tribe, but whole tribes from other districts, are invited to the hunting
party and the feast and dance, or corroboree that ensue; the wild animals
on the ground being all considered the property of the owner of the land.
I have often heard natives myself tell me, in answer to my own questions
on the subject, who were the Aboriginal owners of particular tracts of
land now held by Europeans; and indeed this idea of property in the soil,
FOR HUNTING PURPOSES, is universal among the Aborigines. They seldom
complain of the intrusion of Europeans; on the contrary, they are pleased
at their sitting down, as they call it, on their land: they do not
perceive that their own circumstances are thereby sadly altered for the
worse in most cases; that their means of subsistence are gradually more
and more limited, and their numbers rapidly diminished: in short, in the
simplicity of their hearts, they take the frozen adder in their bosom,
and it stings them to death. They look for a benefit or blessing from
European intercourse, and it becomes their ruin.
If I had had a little more leisure I would have written more at length
and in a style more worthy of your perusal; but you may take it as
certain, at all events, that the Aborigines of Australia HAVE an idea of
property in the soil in their native and original state, and that that
idea is, in reality, not very different from that of the European
proprietors of sheep and cattle, by whom they have, in so many instances
been dispossessed, without the slightest consideration of their rights or
feelings.
Indeed the infinity of the native names of places, all of which are
descriptive and appropriate, is of itself a prima facie evidence of their
having strong ideas of property in the soil; for it is only where such
ideas are entertained and acted on that we find, as is certainly the case
in Australia, Nullum sine nomine saxum.
I am, my dear Friend,
Your's very sincerely,
JOHN DUNMORE LANG.
To Dr. Hodgkin.
...
LAWS OF INHERITANCE AND TRESPASS. LINE OF INHERITANCE.
A father divides his land during his lifetime, fairly apportioning it
amongst his several sons, and at as early an age as fourteen or fifteen
they can point out the portion which they are eventually to inherit.
If the males of a family become extinct the male children of the
daughters inherit their grandfather's land.
CERTAIN LAWS REGARDING ARTICLES OF FOOD.
The punishment of trespass for the purpose of hunting, is invariably
death, if taken in the fact, and at the very least an obstinate contest
ensues. If the trespasser is not taken in the fact, but is recognised
from his footmarks, or from any other circumstance, and is ever caught in
a defenceless state, he is probably killed; but if he appears attended by
his friends he is speared through the thigh, in a manner which will be
mentioned under the head of punishments.
There are other laws intended for the preservation of food, such as that
which enjoins that:
1. No vegetable production used by the natives as food should be plucked
or gathered when bearing seed.
2. That certain classes of natives should not eat particular articles of
food; this restriction being tantamount to game laws, which preserve
certain choice and scarce articles of food from being so generally
destroyed as those which are more abundant.
3. The law regarding the family kobongs, mentioned above.
Independent of these laws there are certain articles of food which they
reject in one portion of the continent and which are eaten in another;
and that this rejection does not arise from the noxious qualities of the
article is plain, for it is sometimes not only of an innocent nature but
both palatable and nutritious: I may take for example the unio, which the
natives of South-west Australia will not eat because, according to a
tradition, a long time ago some natives ate them and died through the
agency of certain sorcerers who looked upon that shellfish as their
peculiar property.