Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/40

 ,^ ADELAIDE AND VICINITY The Forerunners listener. A jwrticular couplet sometimes obtained popularity, and was sung all day long in infinite re|)etition at wtwdland corners and on treeless plains. These are to be esteemed as the normal expres.sion of a phase of their character. They had no settled home, as we understand the term. Here and there they constructed a primitive shelter, but soon the necessities of food compelled them to move on in the liistrict which was the i)eculiar property of a family. Each tribe, or, more pro|)erly. each family, had a circumscribed territory. If any of its members went beyond its bounds, they ran the risk of being captured and killed by the neighboring family. The flowers of .shrubs, several sorts of vegetation, the worms and grubs which burrowed in tree and soil, the roots which la- buried in the ground, animals, birds, and fish, sui:)plied their diet. Everyone who has read anything at all about Australia is acquainted with their methods of hunting the kangaroo, of securing fish, of dragging the opossum from its hollow tree, and of their orgies at the corrobboree. At night the families gathered in their camps, and pa.ssed the time in chanting, in chattering, in laughing, in sharpening weapons, and in incorrigible boastings and conceits concerning impossible exploits. A native camp without huge fires was unknown, for it was thus, they believed, that the few omnipotent and dreaded spirits were kept at bay. Beyond the circle of light lurked stalking demons ready to injure them, and the native did not move without a firestick to give him light. Late at night, one by one of the family dropped off to sleep, and .soon nothing moved but a prowling dog, the restless flicker of the flames, and the quivering leaves of trees. In affairs of the heart they were not without romance. The ordinary routine was certainly not elevating. Honeyed words and gentle caresses were not so frequently used as brute force with the club. The woman, as among the Orientals, was a chattel ; she had no rights, and she asked for none. She was the beast of burden, the hewer, and the drawer. But she was capable of great affection, both to her own kind and to dumb animals. In her tenderness .she has been known to suckle a puppy that had lost its mother. At great discomfort and risk she was kind to her children ; and as nurse in white families she was faithful and affectionate with the little ones entrusted to her care. Under native custom a female child was frequently affianced to a much older male soon after her birth, a custom not long ob.solete in FLurope. .She was married at the age of seven and upwards ; the ceremony was simple and quickly ended. The bride merely proceeded to the hut of the bridegroom, and prepared it for his reception, or she constructed a new hut ; by that little act she was his to club or cuff, his to treat as he wished. .Sometimes she contracted a passion for another man, and woe be to her and her lover if her perfidy were discovered. The deceived husband might end the man's love affair by driving a spear through his body, and might punish the woman by piercing her legs and arms with spears ; so that an attractive female sometimes showed many scars. One ca.se is attested where two young people felt for each other such intense affection