Page:Dawson - Australian aborigines (1900).djvu/55

Rh Until a child is able to walk its mother seldom carries it in her arms, but keeps it on her back under the opossum rug. The rug is worn round the shoulders with the fur side inwards, and is fixed with a wooden pin in front. As every woman carries on her back, outside her rug, a bag suspended from her shoulders by a belt of kangaroo skin, a pouch is thus formed for her baby in a fold of the rug above the bag; and to give the bag solidity, and thus prevent the child from slipping down, stones are sometimes carried in it, in addition to the articles which it usually contains. When the mother wishes to remove the child, she reaches over her shoulder, and pulls it out by the arms. She replaces it in the same way.

To assist the child in cutting its teeth there is fastened to its wrist by a strip of skin a kangaroo front tooth, which is used as a 'coral,' to rub its gums with. As soon as it has teeth to masticate its food, it is fed on anything partaken of by its parents, in addition to the maternal nourishment, which is generally continued for two years.

Children under twelve or fourteen years of age wear no clothing of any kind. When the family is travelling, the youngest child under two years old is carried on the mother's back beneath her rug, occasionally in company with a young dingo. When obliged to leave its comfortable pouch to make room for another arrival, it rides on its father's back for a year or two, with a leg over each shoulder, and both hands holding on to his front hair. In cold weather, the children, while sitting in the wuurn, are covered with a single kangaroo skin or a small opossum rug, thrown over their shoulders; but when they go outside they leave the skin or rug behind, as they prefer keeping them dry for inside comfort.

Boys have their food regulated and restricted to certain articles, and they are permitted to engage in fights only to the extent of picking up and returning spears and boomerangs to their friends. Girls have for their amusement a wooden doll covered with opossum skin, and furnished with a little basket on its back in imitation of the mother.

Large families of children are unusual among the aborigines. However many may be born, rarely more than four are allowed to grow up. Five is considered a large number to rear. Twins are as common among them as among Europeans; but as food is occasionally very scarce, and a large family troublesome to move about, it is lawful and customary to destroy the weakest twin child, irrespective of sex. It is usual also to destroy those which are malformed.