Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/42

 xxxii INTRODUCTION. and young men valued their wives principally for their services as slaves.* The natives of South Australia had many amusements, but they were generally such as bore upon their future pursuits. Young boys had light spears, muffled at the ends with grass, with which they had fights in play, and objects were cast along the ground to represent animals in motion for them to spear at. They had besides these the songs and dances of the adults. The principal dance is common all over the continent, and "corrobboree" is the name by which it is commonly known. In Mr. Taplin’s diary he mentions one that took place on Lake Alexandrina, at the time of the visit of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh. The writer was present, and furnished the official account of the Royal visit to the colony, from which the following description is extracted:  "At a little past nine the corrobboree began. The men wore no clothes, except girdles round their loins, and they were painted in the most extraordinary mannersome with bands of white round their bodies and limbs, like the stripes of a zebra, others were dotted over with white spots, others with regular white streaks from the hips to the feet, with extraordinary devices on the breast and back; all had their faces painted; a great many of them had scars on their backs, which form some distinguishing mark of the various tribes. They are caused by incisions made in the flesh with sharp stones or shells, and treated afterwards in such a way that when they heal up they leave prominent ridges quite a third of an inch in height above the surface of the body, and from an inch and a vitam pene prostituunt. Apud plurimas tribus juventutem utriusque sexus sine discrimne concumbere in usus est. Si juvenis forte indigenorum caetum quendam in castris manentem adveniat ubi quaevis sit puella innupta mos est, nocte veniente et cubantibus omnibus illam ex loco exsurgere et juvenem accedentem cum illo per noctem manere unde in sedem propriam ante diem redit. Cui feminae sit eam amicis libenter praebet, si in itinere sit uxori in castris manenti aliquis ejus supplet ille vires.." He mentions other customs, but the above will suffice to show the general tone of morals among the Aborigines, and the difficulties that would interpose in the way of attempts at civilising them.
 * Eyre. The following is an extract from one of his notes: "Feminee sese per totam