In New South Wales and about Riverina, says Brough Smyth (II., 316),

“in any instance where the abduction [of a woman] has taken place by a party of men for the benefit of some one individual, each of the members of the party claims, as a right, a privilege which the intended husband has no power to refuse.”

Curr informs us (I., 128) that if a woman resist her husband’s orders to give herself up to another man she is “either speared or cruelly beaten.”  Fison (303) believes that the lending of wives to visitors was looked on not as a favor but a duty—­a right which the visitor could claim; and Howitt showed that in the native gesture language there was a special sign for this custom—­“a peculiar folding of the hands,” indicating “either a request or an offer, according as it is used by the guest or the host."[160] Concerning Queensland tribes Roth says (182): 

“If an aboriginal requires a woman temporarily for venery he either borrows a wife from her husband for a night or two in exchange for boomerangs, a shield, food, etc., or else violates the female when unprotected, when away from the camp out in the bush.  In the former case the husband looks upon the matter as a point of honor to oblige his friend, the greatest compliment that can be paid him, provided that permission is previously asked.  On the other hand, were he to refuse he has the fear hanging over him that the petitioner might get a death-bone pointed at him—­and so, after all, his apparent courtesy may be only Hobson’s choice.  In the latter case, if a married woman, and she tells her husband, she gets a hammering, and should she disclose the delinquent, there will probably be a fight, and hence she usually keeps her mouth shut; if a single woman, or of any paedomatronym other than his own, no one troubles himself about the matter.  On the other hand, death by the spear or club is the punishment invariably inflicted by the camp council collectively for criminally assaulting any blood relative, group-sister (i.e., a female member of the same paedomatronym) or young woman that has not yet been initiated into the first degree.”

The last sentence would indicate that these tribes are not so indifferent to chastity as the other natives; but the information given by Roth (who for three years was surgeon-general to the Boulia, Cloncurry and Normanton hospitals) dispels such an illusion most radically.[161]

USELESS PRECAUTIONS

In Central Australia, says H. Kempe,[162] “there is no separation of the sexes in social life; in the daily camp routine as well as at festivals all the natives mingle as they choose.”  Curr asserts (I., 109) that

“in most tribes a woman is not allowed to converse or have any relations whatever with any adult male, save her husband.  Even with a grown-up brother she is almost forbidden to exchange a word.”

Grey (II., 255) found that at dances the females sat in groups apart and the young men were never allowed to approach them and not permitted to hold converse with any one except their mother or sisters.  “On no occasion,” he adds,