FL661451

own tribe. You may imagine that they can-
not always make sure of retaining their spoil,
they may have to fight for [crossed out: their booty] the same and
after all loose it again & as a reprisal
they may lose some women of their own tribe.
In fact to steal a woman is almost the only
kind of theft heard of among the Aborigines.
The only sort of property they value is a woman and to
describe a poor man amongst them implies as
much as he is without a wife.
But this is not all; the wife is literally
treated like a man's property or something
with which he can traffic as he pleases.
The husband can [word crossed out] give his wife to
another man for a continuance or merely
for a time. I [words crssed out] do not feel
at liberty to make any further remarks
on this particular subject. The evil consequences
can easily be guessed at. Still it must not be
supposed that [word crsed out] an indiscriminate
intercorse between the sexes exists only
if no sort of conjugal fidelity were observed.
The husband is indeed supreme ruler over
his wife or wives, but he is jealous if any wife dare
to commit herself [crossed out: with another man][indecipherable]
another man take undue liberties with her
[word crossed out] the punishment may be no less than
death to both parties, if there are any aggravating