on this occasion have access to her. In any set fight between him and her kindred the weapons would be agreed upon. If a single combat, it would be club and shield; but if otherwise, he would have to defend himself against several spears thrown at him all at once. If he is defeated, and unable to fight any longer, he loses her. It was only the great warriors and the head men who had more than one wife."
Mr. Naseby further remarks, "One of my black servants had been with me about six years, and was now getting to be near thirteen years of age, a time when a black boy thinks of getting married. I knew the feeling to be so strong in the aboriginal nature that, if not indulged, the boy would run away. I therefore said, 'Wait, Georgie, until we get to the Gwydir (we were then at Maitland), and you shall have a gin.'[1] Accordingly when we reached Yaggabri, George went by my directions to the camp, and chose a wife according to the Kamilaroi practice, and brought her with him on the return trip of the dray to Maitland. Scarcely, however, had I and my party left on the return journey to Maitland than a band of blacks was seen following the drays, and with loud voices and hostile demeanour demanding that Georgie should give back his wife. This I was very unwilling to permit, because I knew that thereby I should lose a very valuable servant. The blacks still continued to follow; and after a few days I held a parley with them, and learned that Georgie was not entitled by their laws to have a wife, because he had not attended enough Boras, and therefore was liable to be put to death, and they would do so as soon as the white man was not there to protect him. By my influence and kindness I succeeded in pacifying them. They returned home and Georgie was safe."
This account shows to us the custom from which the often-accepted account of Australian marriages has been
- ↑ Gin means "woman" or "wife." It appears as din in the Port Jackson vocabularies, and has now been carried by white settlers and their black boys to distant parts. I found it once included in a vocabulary sent to me from the Darling River back country. On querying it, my correspondent inquired, and corrected the error by inserting the word belonging to that language.
