Volume II Part 18 (1/2)

The laws of this people are unfitted for the government of a single isolated family, some of them being only adapted for the regulation of an a.s.semblage of families; they could therefore not have been a series of rules given by the first father to his children: again, they could not have been rules given by an a.s.sembly of the first fathers to their children, for there are these remarkable features about them that some are of such a nature as to compel those subject to them to remain in a state of barbarism, whilst others are adapted to the wants and necessities of savage RACES, as well as to prevent too close intermarriages of a people who preserve no written or symbolical records of any kind; and in all these instances the desired ends are obtained by the simplest means, so that we are necessitated to admit that, when these rules were planned it was foreseen that the race submitted to them would be savages, and under this foresight the necessary provision was made for the event.

We cannot argue that this race was originally in a state of civilization, and that from the introduction of certain laws amongst them, the tendency of which was to reduce them to a state of barbarism, or from some other cause, they had gradually sunk to their present condition; for in that case how could those laws which provide solely for the necessities of a people in their present state have been introduced amongst them? Neither could they have been invented according to necessities and emergencies which a savage state has produced, for under such circ.u.mstances it is impossible that they could have been promulgated and enforced throughout so wide a range of country, and amongst a dispersed race of barbarians of such a variety of dispositions, who acknowledge no chief or lawgiver, and are so characteristically impatient of restraint.

Without in this place attempting to form and to support any theories founded upon the views I have just put forward, I may state my impression that it would seem, from the laws and customs of the natives of Australia, to have been willed that this people should until a certain period remain in their present condition, which is consequently not the result of mere accident, or of the natural const.i.tution of man. From the peculiar nature of their inst.i.tutions it was impossible that they could emerge from a state of barbarism whilst these remained in force, and from the tenacity and undeviating strictness with which they are retained, and the strong power they hold over the savage mind, it seems equally impossible that they could have been abrogated, or even altered, until the race subjected to them came into contact with a civilized community whose presence might exercise a new influence, under which the ancient system would expire or be swept away.

We may, I think, fairly produce this as a proof that the progress of civilization over the earth has been directed, set bounds to, and regulated by certain laws framed by Infinite wisdom; and, although such views may by some be deemed visionary, I feel some confidence that these laws are as certain and definite as those which control the movements of the heavenly bodies. I believe moreover, that they are capable in some degree of being studied and reduced to order, although no attempt to do so has. .h.i.therto been made; and the inst.i.tutions of barbarous races, their probable origin, the effects they have upon the people submitted to them, the evidences of design which they contain, and other similar questions, are those points to which in this enquiry attention should be particularly directed.

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.

The progress of events and the rapid march of science in our country are very wonderful, but the progress of events in the eastern hemisphere at the present moment is still more amazing: Christianity and civilization are marching over the world with a rapidity not fully known or estimated by any one nation; the English are scarcely aware what has been effected by their own missionaries and commerce, and they are utterly ignorant of what has been already done, and is now doing, by the Americans, Dutch, and Portuguese.

CHAPTER 11. LAWS OF RELATIONs.h.i.+P, MARRIAGE, AND INHERITANCE.

RELATIONs.h.i.+P AND MARRIAGE. DIVISION OF FAMILIES.

Traditional Laws of Relations.h.i.+p and Marriage.

One of the most remarkable facts connected with the natives is that they are divided into certain great families, all the members of which bear the same names, as a family, or second name: the princ.i.p.al branches of these families, so far as I have been able to ascertain, are the:

Ballaroke Tdondarup Ngotak Nagarnook Nogonyuk Mongalung Narrangur.

But in different districts the members of these families give a local name to the one to which they belong, which is understood in that district to indicate some particular branch of the princ.i.p.al family. The most common local names are:

Didaroke Gwerrinjoke Maleoke Waddaroke Djekoke Kotejumeno Namyungo Yungaree.

These family names are common over a great portion of the continent; for instance, on the Western coast, in a tract of country extending between four and five hundred miles in lat.i.tude, members of all these families are found. In South Australia I met a man who said that he belonged to one of them, and Captain Flinders mentions Yungaree as the name of a native in the gulf of Carpentaria.

LAW OF MARRIAGE.

These family names are perpetuated and spread through the country by the operation of two remarkable laws:

1. That children of either s.e.x always take the family name of their mother.

2. That a man cannot marry a woman of his own family name.

COINCIDENT INSt.i.tUTIONS AMONGST THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

But not the least singular circ.u.mstance connected with these inst.i.tutions is their coincidence with those of the North American Indians, which are thus stated in the Archaeologia Americana:*

Independent of political or geographical divisions, that into families or clans has been established from time immemorial. At what time and in what manner the division was first made is not known. At present, or till very lately, every nation was divided into a number of clans, varying in the several nations from three to eight or ten, the members of which respectively were dispersed indiscriminately throughout the whole nation.

It has been fully ascertained that the inviolable regulations by which those clans were perpetuated amongst the southern nations were, first, that no man could marry in his own clan; secondly, that every child belongs to his or her mother's clan. Among the Choctaws there are two great divisions, each of which is subdivided into four clans, and no man can marry in any of the four clans belonging to his division. The restriction among the Cherokees, the Creeks, and the Natches, does not extend beyond the clan to which the man belongs.

There are sufficient proofs, that the same division into clans, commonly called tribes, exists among almost all the other Indian nations. But it is not so clear that they are subject to the same regulations which prevail amongst the southern Indians.

(*Footnote. Volume 2 page 109.)

A similar law of consanguinity seems to be inferred in Abraham's reply to Abimelech (Genesis 20:12) And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.

FAMILY NAMES AND SIGNS. ORIGIN OF FAMILY NAMES.