Condition of the women.

The life of a married woman among the Kowrarega and Gudang blacks is a hard one.  She has to procure nearly all the food for herself and husband, except during the turtling season, and on other occasions when the men are astir.  If she fails to return with a sufficiency of food, she is probably severely beaten—­indeed the most savage acts of cruelty are often inflicted upon the women for the most trivial offence.

Their treatment by the men.

Considering the degraded position assigned by the Australian savages to their women, it is not surprising that the Prince of Wales Islanders should, by imitating their neighbours in this respect, afford a strong contrast to the inhabitants of Darnley and other islands of the North-East part of Torres Strait, who always appeared to me to treat their females with much consideration and kindness.  Several instances of this kind of barbarity came under my own notice.  Piaquai (before-mentioned) when spoken to about his wife whom he had killed a fortnight before in a fit of passion, seemed much amused at the idea of having got rid of her unborn child at the same time.  One morning at Cape York, Paida did not keep his appointment with me as usual; on making inquiry, I found that he had been squabbling with one of his wives a few minutes before, about some trifle, and had speared her through the hip and groin.  On expressing my disapproval of what he had done, adding that white men never acted in that manner, he turned it off by jocularly observing that although I had only one wife, he had two, and could easily spare one of them.  As a further proof of the low condition of the women, I may state that it is upon them that the only restrictions in eating particular sorts of food are imposed.  Many kinds of fish, including some of the best, are forbidden on the pretence of their causing disease in women, although not injurious to the men.  The hawksbill turtle and its eggs are forbidden to women suckling, and no female, until beyond child bearing, is permitted to eat of the Torres Strait pigeon.

Among other pieces of etiquette to be practised after marriage among both the Kowraregas and Gudangs, a man must carefully avoid speaking to or even mentioning the name of his mother-in-law, and his wife acts similarly with regard to her father-in-law.  Thus the mother of a person called Nuki—­which means water—­is obliged to call water by another name; in like manner as the names of the dead are never mentioned without great reluctance so, after the death of a man named Us, or quartz, that stone had its name changed into nattam ure, or the thing which is a namesake, although the original will gradually return to common use.