Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/248

222 It was the mother who chose a husband for her daughter as soon as she was born—some man who had been a true friend to her father, brother, husband, or some one near to her, in the hour of need; and the man to whom she was promised took her away when she was old enough to carry his baggage about the bush, that is, about twelve years of age. In cases of elopement the man to whom she was promised claimed her from the man she had gone with, and there was a set fight between them. The victor kept her, but there were usually two or three fights before the matter was settled. If, after she had consented to marry the man to whom she had been promised, she eloped with some other man, of the proper class and totem, or even if she had been compelled to go by force, she would be almost cut to pieces by her own brothers, and father's brothers, as also by the men of her promised husband's totem. Her brothers might even almost kill her, because they would thereby lose the woman by whose exchange they would obtain a wife for one of them.

The tribal law was extremely strict as to unlawful connections or elopements between persons too nearly related to each other. Such persons would be, for instance, those whom we call cousins, both on the father's and the mother's side, or who are of the class, sub-classes, or totems which do not intermarry. For instance, if a Kurgilla-tunara man ran off with an Obuan-wallaroo (hill kangaroo) woman who ought properly in due course to have married a Kurgilla-burkum (plains-turkey) man, his own and tribal brothers would be against him, as well as the brothers own and tribal of the woman, and those also of the promised husband. In short, he would have to fight with all of them. They would fight in the camp, or wherever they happened to meet. Commonly the woman's brothers called on the promised husband, or, if she was married, on her husband, to come forward and fight the offender, but sometimes it happened, if the promised husband was a very strong or able fighting man, that he would follow the man who had taken his promised wife to his camp. The mother of the woman would cut, and perhaps kill her, and the man's own brothers would challenge him to