Aboriginal Depravity

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_ These revelations of Spencer and Gillen, taken in connection with the abundant evidence I have cited from the works of early explorers as to the utter depravity of the aboriginal Australian when first seen by white men, will make it impossible hereafter for anyone whose reasoning powers exceed a native Australian's to maintain that it was the whites who corrupted these savages. It takes an exceptionally shrewd white man even to unravel the customs of voluntary or obligatory wife sharing or lending which prevail in all parts of Australia, and which must have required not only hundreds but thousands of years to assume their present extraordinarily complex aspect; customs which form part and parcel of the very life of Australians and which represent the lowest depths of sexual depravity, since they are utterly incompatible with chastity, fidelity, legitimacy, or anything else we understand by sexual morality. In some cases, no doubt, contact with the low whites and their liquor aggravated these evils by fostering professional prostitution and making men even more ready than before to treat their wives as merchandise. Lumholtz, who lived several years among these savages, makes this admission, but at the same time he is obliged to join all the other witnesses in declaring that apart from this "there is not much to be said of the morals of the blacks, for I am sorry to say they have none." On a previous page I cited Sutherland's summary of a report of the House of Commons (1844, 350 pages), which shows that the Australian native, as found by the first white visitors, manifested "an absolute incapacity to form even a rudimentary notion of chastity." The same writer, who was born and brought up in Australia, says (I., 121):

"In almost every case the father or husband will
dispose of the girl's virtue for a small price. When
white men came they found these habits prevailing. The
overwhelming testimony proves it absurd to say that
they demoralized the unsophisticated savages."

And again (I., 186),

"It is untrue that in sexual license the savage has
ever anything to learn. In almost every tribe there are
pollutions deeper than any I have thought it necessary
to mention, and all that the lower fringe of civilized
men can do to harm the uncivilized is to stoop to the
level of the latter, instead of teaching them a better
way."[165]

[FOOTNOTE 165: See also the account he gives (I., 180) of the report as to aboriginal morals made in the early days of Victoria by a commission of fourteen settlers, missionaries, and protectors of the aborigines. The explorer Sturt (I., 316) even found that the natives became indignant if the whites rejected their addresses.] _

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