Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/109

104 When a man has two wives many quarrels arise between them on those hut building occasions. We remember seeing a dispute between two ladies of one lord over the erection of a loondthal, which all the husband's marital authority failed to accommodate. It therefore culminated in a fair stand-up fight, yamsticks being the weapons used, and their method of using them is no child's play either, as they lay on with all their might; so in this instance broken and gory heads were soon visible. After a very fierce encounter one gave in beaten, and the construction of the loondthal went on to completion, after which, however, a wordy phase of the disagreement supervened, until their long tongues and vituperative expletives fairly roused the angry passions of their lord and master (who was seated between the dark-skinned combatants) till his savage nature could no longer bear the infliction; therefore he jumped up and caught hold of the centre pole, to which he gave a sudden jerk, and thus let the whole fabric down on the heads of his rival dearies, thereby putting a climax to their clatter. Satisfied with the result so suddenly achieved, he walked off to a neighbouring loondthal, where he passed the time in pleasant aboriginal gossip until his termagant helpmates had re-erected his dwelling and got rid of their bad blood, by means of the healthy and arduous occupation which their husband had so unceremoniously thrust upon them.

There are neither castes nor grades amongst these people of any kind, all being equal in the matter of social status. This being so, there is not any cogent enough reason to cause one hut to be made more pretentious than another, as