George Grey, who, during his two exploring expeditions into Northwestern and Western Australia, likewise came in contact with the “uncontaminated” natives, found that, though “a spear through the calf of the leg is the least punishment that awaits” a faithless wife if detected, and sometimes the death-penalty is inflicted, yet “the younger women were much addicted to intrigue” (I., 231, 253), as indeed they appear to be throughout the continent, as we shall see presently.

Of all Australian institutions none is more characteristic than the corrobborees or nocturnal dances which are held at intervals by the various tribes all over the continent, and were of course held centuries before a white man was ever seen on the continent; and no white man in his wildest nightmare ever dreamt of such scenes as are enacted at them.  They are given preferably by moonlight, are apt to last all night, and are often attended by the most obscene and licentious practices.  The corrobboree, says Curr (I., 92), was undoubtedly “often an occasion of licentiousness and atrocity”; fights, even wars, ensue, “and almost invariably as the result of outrages on women.”  The songs heard at these revels are sometimes harmless and the dances not indecent, says the Rev. G. Taplin (37),

     “but at other times the songs will consist of the vilest
     obscenity.  I have seen dances which were the most disgusting
     displays of obscene gesture possible to be imagined, and
     although I stood in the dark alone, and nobody knew I was
     there, I felt ashamed to look upon such abominations....  The
     dances of the women are very immodest and lewd.” 
John Mathew (in Curr, III., 168) testifies regarding the corrobborees of the Mary Eiver tribes that

“the representations were rarely free from obscenity, and on some occasions indecent gestures were the main parts of the action.  I have seen a structure formed of huge forked sticks placed upright in the ground, the forks upward, with saplings reaching from fork to fork, and boughs laid over all.  This building was part of the machinery for a corrobboree, at a certain stage of which the males, who were located on the roof, rushed down among the females, who were underneath and handled them licentiously."[156]

LOWER THAN BRUTES

The lowest depth of aboriginal degradation remains to be sounded.  Like most of the Africans, Australians are lower than animals inasmuch as they often do not wait till girls have reached the age of puberty.  Meyer (190) says of the Narrinyeri:  “They are given in marriage at a very early age (ten or twelve years).”  Lindsay Cranford[157] testifies regarding five South Australian tribes that “at puberty no girl, without exception, is a virgin.”  With the Paroo River tribes “the girls became wives whilst mere children, and mothers at fourteen” (Curr, II., 182).  Of other tribes Curr’s correspondents write (107):