Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/73

15 MAKING "YOUNG MEN." But it must not be concluded from these facts that the Narrinyeri are incapable of affection for their children. Only let it be determined that an infant’s life shall be saved, and there are no bounds to the fondness and indulgence with which it is treated. Its little winning ways are noticed with delight, and it is the object of the tenderest care. I have known men nurse their children for hours at a time in the absence or sickness of the mothers, and capital nurses they are too. I have seen a man transported with the wildest rage, and fell everybody within reach of his kanape, because he saw a slight spot of blood caused by an accidental blow on the forehead of his baby boy. I remember a man and woman being plunged in the deepest grief by the death of an infant. This child was born before the next older could walk, and consequently ought by native custom to have been destroyed. But being preserved through my influence, its parents became most devotedly attached to it, and I think I never saw more real sorrow than was manifested by them at its decease. When native children are first born they are nearly as white as Europeans. It is difficult for an inexperienced person to tell whether they are half-caste or not. The sign by which this may be known, is a smutty appearance in the pure aboriginal infant just on the upper part of the forehead, as if a smutty hand had been laid there. Children are suckled by their mothers till they are two or three years old. Girls wear a sort of apron of fringe, called kaininggi, until they bear their first child. If they have no children, it is takenfrom them and burned by their husbands while they are asleep.I have known girls have children when only fourteen years of age. SECTION III. —NARUMBE, OR RITES OF INITIATION TO MANHOOD. Among the Narrinyeri, boys are not allowed to cut or comb their hair from the time they are about ten years of age until they undergo the rites by which they are admitted to the class