Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/99

Rh and mentally, the powers, capacities, sympathies, and affections which distinguish man from all other animals, that one touch of nature which makes all men kin. These assertions might be fully justified by the accounts of explorers, the records of the law courts, the reports of the Protectors of Aborigines, and the results of the Benedictine Mission at New Norcia, and the other native institutions at Fremantle, at Perth, and its neighborhood, and at Annesfield, and Albany. Yet, nevertheless, the aboriginal inhabitants are decreasing in number, and deteriorating in character, unless in the northern districts, before the advance of settlement. The civilized man has introduced his characteristic vices and their consequent diseases, rather than the virtues which should distinguish him, and the ultimate result contemplated by most, and placidly by many as inevitable, is that in West Australia, as in many other parts of the world, the native race must die out. Yet the necessity for this is not apparent. The accounts of those who have most carefully studied and recorded their experience of the aborigines of West Australia agree in all important points. Their submission to their own laws is the most notable feature in their character, and their moral and social condition is determined by their laws. The most remarkable are those which relate to affinity, which govern the operation of those relating to marriage, inheritance, and the infliction of punishment for offences, whether judicially or by retaliation. The division of the people is into families, and not, as often represented, into tribes. The Levirate law prevails. Children take the name and become attached to the family of the mother, and inter-marriage between those of the same family is not allowed. Polygamy is permitted, and in the operation of the Levirate law becomes necessary; a man may have several families of children