Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/395

366 embellished in this manner, and I believe that the ornamental process takes place in early youth. My husband used to say that these scars reminded him of the self-inflicted wounds of the priests of Baal, who "cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets" in honour of their god.

"Corobberies" end with fights more frequently than not, for which, were all other causes lacking, the native customs of betrothal and polygamy would alone afford plentiful excuses. There is the mariage de convenance, and the marriage by entail, and there is the runaway marriage which is the most illustrious of all. The first is a family arrangement between the parents in which the parties most interested have no voice, though they render their lives forfeit if they do not carry out the domestic contract.

A settler told me that he and his wife had had a native girl in their service for two years, when one day her affianced husband appeared at the door to claim his bride. It seemed a very matter-of-fact business, and scarcely a word passed between them; she did not show any wish to leave her place, nor any partiality for the bridegroom, and, in the words of my informant, "the two walked away together as sulky as bears."

After marrying his betrothed the man is at liberty to increase his number of wives if he can; but, unless he becomes the heir of a deceased relation, each fresh alliance must be one of theft, both the girls and women being all either married or betrothed and therefore the legal property of somebody or other from their earliest youth. However, as nothing tends so much to raise a