Grosse, who often sides with Westermarck, here parts company with him, being convinced that

"what is called love in Australia is no spiritual affection, but a sensual passion, which is quickly cooled in the enjoyment. The only examples of sympathetic lyrics that have been found in Australia are mourning songs, and even they relate only to relatives by blood and tribal affinity" (B. A., 244).1

A LOCK OF HAIR

A more subtle problem than those so far considered is presented by a courtship custom described by Bulmer (Brough Smyth, 82-84). The natives are very superstitious in regard to their hair. They carefully destroy any that has been cut off and would be greatly frightened to know it had fallen into another person's hands, as that would place their health and life in jeopardy at the other's will. Yet a girl who has a lover will not hesitate to give him a lock of her hair. It seems impossible to deny that this is a touch of true sentiment, of romantic love; and Bulmer accordingly calls this lock of hair a "token of affection." But is it a token of affection? The sequel will show. In due course of time the couple elope; in the black of the night they take to the bush. Great excitement prevails in camp when they are found missing. They are called "long-legged," "thin-legged," "squint-eyed," or "big-headed." Search is made, the pair are tracked and caught, and both are cruelly beaten. They make a promise not to repeat the offence, but do not keep it; another elopement follows, with more beatings. At last the girl becomes afraid to elope again. She alters her tactics, feigns a severe illness, and the parents are alarmed. Then she remembers that her lover has a lock of her hair. He is made to confess, and another fight follows. He is half killed, but after that he is allowed to keep the girl.

1 Gerland (VI., 756) makes the same mistake here as Westermarck. He also refers to Petermann's Mittheilungen for another case of "romantic love." On consulting that periodical (1856, 451) I find that the proof of such love lay in the circumstance that in the quarrels so common in Australian camps, wives would not hesitate to join in and help their husbands!

Thus we see that the lock, instead of being a "token of affection," as Bulmer would have us believe, and as it would be in our community, is not even a sentimental sign of the girl's confidence in her lover, but merely a detail of a foolish custom and stupid superstition.

TWO NATIVE STORIES

As a matter of course Australian folk-lore, too, shows no traces of the existence of love. The nearest approach to such a thing I have been able to find is a quaint story about a man who wanted two wives and of how he got them. It is taken from Mrs. K. Langloh Parker's Australian Legendary Tales and the substance of it is as follows:

Wurrunnah, after a long day's hunting, came back to the camp tired and hungry. His mother had nothing for him to eat and no one else would give him anything. He flew into a rage and said: "I will go into a far country and live with strangers; my people would starve me." He went away and after divers strange adventures with a blind man and emus, who were really black fellows, he came to a camp where there was no one but seven young girls. They were friendly, gave him food, and allowed him to camp there during the night. They told him their name was Meamei and their tribe in a far country to which they would soon return.

The next day Wurrunnah went away as if leaving for good; but he determined to hide near and watch what they did, and if he could get a chance he would steal a wife from among them. He was tired of travelling alone. He saw them all start out with their yam-sticks in hand. Following them he saw them stop by the nests of some flying ants and unearth the ants. Then they sat down, threw their yam-sticks aside, and ate the ants, which are esteemed a great delicacy. While they were eating Wurrunnah sneaked up to their yam-sticks and stole two of them. When the girls had eaten all they wanted only five of them could find their sticks; so those five started off, expecting that the other two would soon find their sticks and follow them.

The two girls hunted all around the ants' nests, but could find no sticks. At last, when their backs were turned toward him, Wurrunnah crept out and stuck the lost yam-sticks near together in the ground; then he slipped back to his hiding

place. When the two girls turned round, there in front of them they saw their sticks. With a cry of joyful surprise they ran to them and caught hold of them to pull them out of the ground, in which they were firmly stuck. As they were doing so, out from his hiding-place jumped Wurrunnah. He seized both girls round their waists, holding them tightly. They struggled and screamed, but to no purpose. There was none near to hear them, and the more they struggled the tighter Wurrunnah held them. Finding their screams and struggles in vain they quietened at length, and then Wurrunnah told them not to be afraid, he would take care of them. He was lonely, he said, and wanted two wives. They must come quietly with him and he would be good to them. But they must do as he told them. If they were not quiet he would swiftly quieten them with his moorillah. if they would come quietly with him he would be good to them. Seeing that resistance was useless the two young girls complied with his wish, and travelled quietly on with him. They told him that some day their tribe would come and steal them back again; to avoid which he travelled quickly on and on still farther hoping to elude pursuit. weeks passed and he told his wives to go and get some bark from two pine-trees near by. They declared if they did so he would never see them again. But he answered “Talk not so foolishly; if you ran away soon should I catch you and, catching you, would beat you hard. So talk no more." They went and began to cut the bark from the trees. As they did so each felt that her tree was rising higher out of the ground and bearing her upward with it. Higher and higher grew the pine-trees and up with them went the girls until at last the tops touched the sky. Wurrunnah called after them, but they listened not. Then they heard the voices of their five sisters, who from the sky stretched forth their hands and drew the two others in to live with them in the sky, and there you may see the seven sisters together. We know them as the Pleiades, but the black fellows call them the Meamei.

Some

A few rather improper tales regarding the sun and moon are recorded in Woods's Native Tribes by Meyer, who thus sums up two of them (200); the other being too obscene for citation here:

The sun they consider to be a female, who, when she sets, passes the dwelling-places of the dead. As she approaches the men assemble and divide into two bodies, leaving a

road for her to pass between them; they invite her to stay with them, which she can only do for a short time, as she must be ready for her journey for the next day. For favors granted to some one among them she receives a present of red kangaroo skin; and therefore in the morning, when she rises, appears in a red dress.

The moon is also a woman, and not particularly chaste. She stays a long time with the men, and from the effects of her intercourse with them, she becomes very thin and wastes away to a mere skeleton. When in this state, Nurrunduri orders her to be driven away. She flies, and is secreted for some time, but is employed all the time in seeking roots which are so nourishing that in a short time she appears again, and fills out and becomes fat rapidly.

Here we see how even such sublime and poetic phenomena as sun and moon are to the aboriginal mind only symbols of their coarse, sensual lives: the heavenly bodies are concubines of the men, welcomed when fat, driven away when thin. That puts the substance of Australian love in a nutshell.

BARRINGTON'S LOVE-STORY

In the absence of aboriginal love-stories let us amuse ourselves by examining critically a few more of the alleged cases of romantic love discovered by Europeans. The erudite German anthropologist Gerland expresses his belief (VI., 755) that notwithstanding the degradation of the Australians "cases of true romantic love occur among them," and he refers for an instance to Barrington (I., 37). On consulting Barrington I find the following incident related as a sample of genuine love in all its purity." I condense the unessential parts:

66

A young man of twenty-three, belonging to a tribe near Paramatta, was living in a cave with two sisters, one of fourteen, the other of twenty. One day when he returned from his kangaroo hunt he could not find the girls. Thinking they had gone to fetch water or roots for supper, he sat down till a rain-storm drove him into the cave, where he stumbled over the prostrate form of the younger sister. She was lying in a pool of blood, but presently regained consciousness and

told him that a man had beating her on the head. hold her back when the brute knocked her over with his club and dragged off the sister.

come to carry off her sister, after She had seized the sister's arm to

It was too late to take revenge that day, but next morning the two set out for the tribe to which the girl-robber belonged. As they approached the camp, Barrington contin

nes,

"he saw the sister of the very savage who had stolen his sister; she was leaving her tribe to pick some sticks for a fire (this was indeed a fine opportunity for revenge); so making his sister hide herself, he flew to the young woman and lifted up his club to bring her to the ground, and thus satisfy his revenge. The victim trembled, yet, knowing his power, she stood with all the fortitude she could; lifting up her eyes, they came in contact with his and such was the enchanting beauty of her form (!) that he stood an instant motionless to gaze on it (!). The poor thing saw this and dropped on her knees (!) to implore his pity, but before she could speak, his revenge softened into love (); he threw down his club, and clasping her in his arms () vowed eternal constancy (!!!); his pity gained her love (!), thus each procured a mutual return. Then calling his sister, she would have executed her revenge, but for her brother, who told her she was now his wife. On my hero asking after his sister, his new wife said she was very ill, but would soon be better; and she excused her brother (!) because the means he had taken were the customary one of procuring a wife (!!); but you,' said she, have more white heart' (meaning he was more like the English), 'you no beat me; me love you; you love me; me love your sisters; your sisters love me; my brother no good man.' This artless address won both their hearts, and now all three live in one hut which I enabled them to make comfortable within half a mile of my own house."

Barrington concludes with these words: "This little anecdote I have given as the young man related it to me and perhaps I have lost much of its simplicity." It is very much to be feared that he has. I have marked with exclamation points the most absurdly impossible parts of the tale as idealized and embellished by Barrington. The Australian never told him that he "gazed motionless" on the "enchanting