Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/250

224 punishment by cutting with their knives, and would be compelled to go with her promised husband, or her husband if she were married, or she might even be killed in the fight.

At festive meetings of the tribe, men of the same totem exchanged wives for two or three days, and they also lent women to friendly visitors, who must of course be of the proper class, sub-class, and totem. A widow went to the brother of the deceased husband, or if there were not any, to his best friend of the same totem. The brother must be of the same mother, but might be by a different father.

A child of an unlawful amour, or unlawful marriage, if it were not killed, would be called Kongara, that is, mongrel. For instance, if the mother were Wungoan, and the child were a boy, he would be Wungo, but would not have any totem.

In this tribe, as will be seen from the following example, there was group-marriage. Say that there are seven men, all Mallera-kurgilla-small-bee, and who are, some own, and some tribal brothers. One of these men is married, his wife being Wutheran-obukan-carpet-snake. None of the other six men is married. They and the woman married to their brother call each other husband and wife, and the six men have and exercise marital rights as to her. Her child calls each of these six men father, as well as the seventh man, who is the actual husband of its mother, and the six men have to protect the child. This clearly is a form of the Pirrauru marriage of the Lake Eyre tribes. The importance of this occurrence in a tribe, so distant from those of Lake Eyre, is that the Wakelbura is one of a large group of tribes who have the same organisation.

In cases where there was an elopement between persons of two different tribes, the woman was sometimes left with her abductor if she survived the cutting she received; but he would then probably leave his own tribe and join some other, for otherwise, whenever his and her tribe met, there would be renewed contests between his and her relatives.