Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain Owen Stanley - Volume 2 by John MacGillivray (best books to read for knowledge .txt) 📕

approach by great shouting and blowing on conchs. The heads were placed on an oven and partially cooked, when the eyes were scooped out and eaten with portions of flesh cut from the cheek;* only those, however, who had been present at the murder were allowed to partake of this; the morsel was supposed to make them more brave. A dance was then commenced, during which the heads were kicked along the ground, and the savage excitement of the dancers almost amounted to frenzy. The skulls were ultimately hung up on two cross sticks near the camp, and allowed to remain there undisturbed.

(*Footnote. The eyes and cheeks of the survivors from the wreck of a Charles Eaton (in August 1834) were eaten by their murderers-a party consisting of different tribes from the eastern part of Torres Strait. See Nautical Magazine 1837 page 799.)

In the beginning of 1849 a party of Badulegas who had spent two months on a friendly visit to the natives of Muralug treacherously killed an old Italega woman, married to one of their hosts. Two of her brothers from Banks Island were staying with her at the time, and one was killed, but the other managed to escape. The heads were carried off to Badu as trophies. This treacherous violation of the laws of hospitality was in revenge for some petty injury which one of the Badu men received from an Ita black several years before.

SIGNALS BY SMOKE.

When a large fire is made by one tribe it is often intended as a signal of defiance to some neighbouring one-an invitation to fight-and may be continued daily for weeks before hostilities commence; it is answered by a similar one. Many other signals by smoke are in use: for example, the presence of an enemy upon the coast-a wish to communicate with another party at a distance-or the want of assistance-may be denoted by making a small fire, which, as soon as it has given out a little column of smoke, is suddenly extinguished by heaping sand upon it. If not answered immediately it is repeated; if still unanswered, a large fire is got up and allowed to burn until an answer is returned.

POLYGAMY.

Polygamy is practised both on the mainland and throughout the islands of Torres Strait. Five is the greatest number of wives which I was credibly informed had been possessed by one man-but this was an extraordinary instance, one, two, or three, being the usual complement, leaving of course many men who are never provided with wives. The possession of several wives ensures to the husband a certain amount of influence in his tribe as the owner of so much valuable property, also from the nature and extent of his connections by marriage. In most cases females are betrothed in infancy, according to the will of the father, and without regard to disparity of age, thus the future husband may be and often is an old man with several wives. When the man thinks proper he takes his wife to live with him without any further ceremony, but before this she has probably had promiscuous intercourse with the young men, such, if conducted with a moderate degree of secrecy, not being considered as an offence, although if continued after marriage it would be visited by the husband (if powerful enough) upon both the offending parties with the severest punishment.

Occasionally there are instances of strong mutual attachment and courtship, when, if the damsel is not betrothed, a small present made to the father is sufficient to procure his consent; at the Prince of Wales Islands a knife or glass bottle are considered as a sufficient price for the hand of a lady fair, and are the articles mostly used for that purpose.

According to Giaom puberty in girls takes place from the tenth to the twelfth year, but few become mothers at a very early age. When parturition is about to take place the woman retires to a little distance in the bush, and is attended by an experienced matron. Delivery is usually very easy, and the mother is almost always able on the following day to attend to her usual occupations. The infant is laid upon a small soft mat which the mother has taken care to prepare beforehand, and which is used for no other purpose.

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.

The population of Muralug is kept always about the same numerical standard by the small number of births, and the occasional practice of infanticide. Few women rear more than three children, and besides, most of those born before marriage are doomed to be killed immediately after birth, unless the father-which is seldom the case-is desirous of saving the child-if not, he gives the order marama teio (throw it into the hole) and it is buried alive accordingly. Even of other infants some, especially females, are made away with in a similar manner when the mother is disinclined to support it.

NAMING OF CHILDREN.

An infant is named immediately after birth: and, on Muralug, these names for the last few years have been chosen by a very old man named Guigwi. Many of these names have a meaning attached to them: thus, two people are named respectively Wapada and Passei, signifying particular trees, one woman is called Kuki, or the rainy season, and her son Ras, or the driving cloud. Most people have several names, for instance, old Guigwi was also called Salgai, or the firesticks, and Mrs. Thomson was addressed as Kesagu, or Taomai, by her (adopted) relatives, but as Giaom by all others. Children are usually suckled for about two years, but are soon able, in a great measure, to procure their own food, especially shellfish, and when strong enough to use the stick employed in digging up roots, they are supposed to be able to shift for themselves.

COMPRESSION OF THE SKULL.

A peculiar form of head, which both the Kowrarega and Gudang blacks consider as the beau ideal of beauty, is produced by artificial compression during infancy. Pressure is made by the mother with her hands-as I have seen practised on more than one occasion at Cape York-one being applied to the forehead and the other to the occiput, both of which are thereby flattened, while the skull is rendered proportionally broader and longer than it would naturally have been.*

(*Footnote. Precisely the same form of skull as that alluded to in volume 1: hence it is not unreasonable to suppose that the latter might have been artificially produced.)

When the child is about a fortnight old the perforation in the septum of the nose is made by drilling it with a sharp-pointed piece of tortoise-shell, but the raised artificial scars, regarded as personal ornaments by the Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, are not made until long afterwards. According to Giaom, who states that among the Kowraregas this scarification is purely voluntary, the patient is laid upon the ground and held there, while the incisions are made with a piece of glass by some old man famous for his skill in performing the operation. The chewed leaf of a certain plant (which, however, I could not identify) is introduced into the wound to prevent the edges from uniting, and a daub of wet clay is then placed over all, and kept there until the necessary effect has been produced. The principal scarifications among women at Cape York and Muralug are in the form of long lines across the hips. Among the men, however, there is considerable variety.

The characteristic mode of dressing the hair among the Torres Strait Islanders is to have it twisted up into long pipe-like ringlets, and wigs in imitation of this are also worn. Sometimes the head is shaved, leaving a transverse crest-a practice seldom seen among the men but not uncommon among women and children, from Darnley Island down to Cape York. At the last place and Muralug the hair is almost always kept short-still caprice and fashion have their sway, for at Cape York I have at times for a week together seen all the men and lads with the hair twisted into little strands well daubed over with red ochre and turtle fat.

RAISED CICATRICES ON THE BODY.

The Torres Strait Islanders are distinguished by a large complicated oval scar, only slightly raised, and of neat construction. This, which I have been told has some connection with a turtle, occupies the right shoulder, and is occasionally repeated on the left. At Cape York, however, the cicatrices were so varied, that I could not connect any particular style with an individual tribe-at the same time something like uniformity was noticed among the Katchialaigas, nearly all of whom had, in addition to the horned breast-mark, two or three long transverse scars on the chest, which the other tribes did not possess. In the remaining people the variety of marking was such that it appeared fair to consider it as being regulated more by individual caprice