Table of Contents
First published as ‘Beiträge zur Ethnographie der Australier’ in Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft, vol. 27, 1907, pp. 18-38. The article was written in English and translated into German by an unnamed translator. This version was retranslated into English by Christine Winter.
The Anthropological Society of Vienna has, in earlier issues, included some of my contributions, in which I have provided information about the natives of Australia, and which deal with sociology, language, initiation ceremonies and vendettas.
In this article at hand I will provide a short outline of some particular mutilations, as well as other customs, including piercing of the nasal septum; extraction of teeth; amputation of fingers; mumbirbirri or scarification design; and dried hands as amulets. Further, I will deal with canoes and rafts, then give an account of dwellings, weapons, utensils, clothing, games, fire-making and other customs of daily life.
All information contained in the following pages is the result of my own observations and visits to natives of various districts. Where I refer to work of other authors the location is indicated from where the relevant statement is taken. The geographic spread of the individual custom disclosed is in every case fixed.
The work at hand is intended to deliver, together with my earlier contributions, an introduction to the customs of the natives of Australia, and I hope to have rendered a service to German ethnographers and to those who live in colonies where similar races exist.
The mutilations connected with circumcision and the splitting of the urethra for men and the widening of the orficium vaginae for women, which is practised in some parts of Australia I have already described in other works and I will therefore not repeat myself here.[1]