satisfaction of the old men, they interfered to stop the fight, saying, as Berak put it, "You have both got blood; it is enough; now make friends." This would be done by each, assuming that both had been wounded, taking some of his own blood and rubbing it over his antagonist. The girl was in such cases severely beaten by her mother and sisters. It was within Berak's recollection that a girl so persistently objected to the man chosen for her husband, that she was finally permitted to remain with the one chosen by herself. But the man in that case had to find a sister to exchange for her.
The actual ceremony of marriage was by the girl's father and some of the old men taking the girl to the camp of her promised husband, and there saying to her, "That is your husband; if you run away from him, you will be punished."
The line of descent runs through males. As it was put to me, "The child comes from the man, and the woman only takes care of it." Berak said in regard to this, "I remember what old Boberi, the brother of Billi-billeri, said at Dandenong, when some of the boys were grumbling and would not mind him. The old man got vexed, and said to his son, 'Listen to me! I am here, and there you stand with my body.'"[1]
In cases of elopement with a girl within the forbidden degrees, the course followed was the same as with the Jajaurung. All the young men hunted for them, and, if found, they would be severely handled, if not killed. In one case, which happened in the Kulin tribe, near Benalla, an old man had a grown-up son, and a girl lived with them who was in the relation of daughter to the old man, and therefore in the relation of sister to his son. The man's friends told him to get the girl married, because it was not right to have her living single in the same camp with his son. He did not do this, and his son took the girl. Then the old man was very angry, and said, "I am ashamed; every one will hear of this; why have you done this thing?
- ↑ "Indara nganangun, mun ngurlik munnu-numbun, murrumbick koiuil wanthunara murrumbiek."
