Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/24

 xiv INTRODUCTION. begged to be dipped. The experiment, however, was too hazardous, and no one liked to risk a trial for murder or manslaughter, if, as was by no means unlikely, a patient should die from the effects of the treatment. Other diseases are mentioned by Eyre, such as gout, rheumatism, inflammation of the bronchia, lungs and pleura. Phthisis is common, and erysipelas sometimes is met with. Scrofula has been seen, but seldom. A disease not unlike smallpox, and leaving similar traces on the face, has been heard of, but it is not believed to be the true variola, and it has not been seen for years. Any reliable account of the maladies incidental to the South Australian Aborigines cannot now be obtained. With the cessation of the Protectorate of Aborigines as the function of a separate staff, all official interest in the native seems to have expired, and nothing now is done for them except periodically to give to them, through the mounted police, flour, tea, sugar, &c., and even this modicum of generosity is administered in a loose and perfunctory manner, owing to the pressure of more urgent duties on those who are in charge. Allusion has been made to customs, religious or otherwise, which have tended to destroy some of the tribes. One which is calculated, without actual homicide, to thin the race, exists amongst those who live to the westward throughout the Port Lincoln Peninsula, and as far at least as the head of the Great Australian Bight.* The details of this peculiar practice are appended in a note. They can scarcely be recorded in English. How this horrible custom originated can only be a matter of conjecture. Probably it was intended to guard against too rapid an increase in districts when water is very scarce, and therefore the means of subsistence precarious and difficult to obtain.† 79th Regiment. † Operationem hoc modo perficiunt, os Walabii (Halmaturus) attenuatum per urethram immittunt illudque ad scrotum protrudunt ita ut permeet carnem. Scindunt dein lapide acuto usque ad glandem penis. Patet propagationem exind e difficile omnino evadere, si non plane impossibilem. Videtur propagationem omnem, quaecumque inter aborigines hujus modi obtinet, ex illis commixtionibus proficisci quae ante supra dicta matrimonia contingant.
 * Now a port with a telegraph station. Discovered by Captain E. A. Delisser, late