Source: TW
Biological knowledge
Many Australian tribes thought babies resulted from reincarnation rather than sex. One tribe described how a tiny spirit would meet a woman, throw a small club at a her big toe and enter her body through the wound. (Mathews, 1900)
Merlan (1986) says some tribes understood physical paternity but that others apparently didn’t. Rather than pregnancy, sex was associated with pleasure, rituals and punishment. It was also seen as the cause of female puberty and menstrual periods.
Infanticide was pretty widespread but I’ve only seen a few reports of infants being eaten. During colonization children of European fathers were especially targeted, often by their fathers (Roth, 1897)
Or maybe agriculture and animal husbandry resulted in a greater understanding of sexual reproduction. No animals were ever bred or domesticated in Australia.
Initiation sex
In Australia, sex was a part of every woman’s life. Female initiation often involved sex with multiple men.
Marriage laws
There was also a practice where a woman would be assigned a husband before she was even conceived. Assigning men unborn wives was one way. And most tribes were divided into two or more social classes (moieties) with in-class marriage punishable by death. There was also an emphasis on exogamy and obtaining wives from distant clans.
Australian tribal laws regarding social relationships and who could marry who were mind-numbingly complex. One effect was low cases of incest but I doubt that was the original reason. Like all animals, we do things instinctively that keep us alive and create healthy children. And natural selection works on cultures too. There may have been groups in Australia which allowed incest but those groups quickly died out.
Fatherhood
The mother’s husband was usually considered the father. But “fatherhood” could also be determined by
- “Finding” the child (recognizing pregnancy)
- Directing spirit-children to women
- Totemic associations
- Ritual roles
- Post-birth nurturing
Menses
In many areas, girls didn’t marry until after their first menses. But some tribes in Arnhem Land, Tiwi and central Australia believed that men having sex with their pre-pubescent wives helped induce maturation. (Merlan, 1986) (5)
Gerontocracy
Australian tribes were gerontocracies where the elders held sway. Usually this meant the old men but old women sometimes had influence too
Sorcery
In forager societies children were often unwanted additions. Some Australian sorcerers performed elaborate curses to make rival groups pregnant (biological paternity was not well-understood).