Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/261

V name I received at the Dora is so and so." He tells them who his father is, and what his name is, and where his mother came from, and some one is almost sure to know something about him. If he cannot satisfactorily tell them who he is, he will be almost certainly killed. But a man who has satisfactorily made himself known, and who is a fine dancer or singer, or a great fighting-man, or has some special qualifications, may, if he is generous and makes presents to his entertainers, be provided with a temporary wife, it being of course understood that she is of the class with which his own intermarries. Such a woman would, however, be one of those who, the blacks say, are "always looking out for men." The old men would order her to go with the stranger, and if she objected, it would be the worse for her. A man would arrange this, and thus reserve his wife from the stranger, and any intercourse between a stranger and a woman without the consent of her husband would cause trouble. The husband, father, or brother of such a woman would receive the presents if any were given.

Sometimes men were lured in this way to be killed. In one case two black boys were so lured and killed, who were in Mr. Aldridge's service, and their bodies were cut up and left lying on a log.

A man might in the manner described make himself known over a tract of country having a radius of about one hundred and twenty miles from Maryborough, that is to say, to the confines of the next tribe to that to which the man belonged. But say that two tribes, a hundred miles apart, met at a corrobboree, or a ceremonial fight, and that some man of one tribe was much admired for his dancing or other qualifications, a man of the other tribe might say to him, "I will give you my daughter." The other man, agreeing, would return with him, and thus pick up another language, which would carry him another hundred or a hundred and fifty miles further out. He could then go still further, and, by making presents, or by making himself agreeable to the tribe in some way, they also would receive him hospitably, and entertain him as before mentioned.

A woman taken in a hostile attack belonged to the man