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.
Introcision
We don’t really know the original reasons behind introcision. The vagina was usually enlarged by cutting the perineum with a stone knife. This may have increased ease of childbirth or perhaps been a convenience of the girl’s often-older husband.
More details from the report of recent introcision and rape. As always, hard to know for certain as these rites are guarded by the strictest secrecy taboos
2/ Introcision was the female equivalent of circumcision and subincision. The girl initiates and male participants were strictly forbidden to talk about it to non-initiated people, but recent reports suggest the rite is still practiced in some form
The introcision rite would have looked more like this. It was a common practice to have participants use their bodies to form “operating tables”
Carved stones depicting circumcision and subincision (AB). Their purpose is uncertain, but likely related to initiation rites. In the Great Victoria Desert a similarly-shaped stone cylcon was used for female introcision
Initiation sex
In Australia, sex was a part of every woman’s life. Female initiation often involved sex with multiple men.
Gang rape was a traditional practice in parts of Australia (and possibly still is). One example is the initiation rite of introcision, where pubescent girls had their vaginas cut and were then forced to have sex with multiple men. 1/
(Image by Nicolas-Martin Petit, c. 1800)
Here’s a recent instance from 2002 where a girl had been betrothed to a man at birth by her parents (a once widespread practice)
I should also clarify that Petit’s drawing is from NSW and doesn’t depict introcision.
There may be some sort sorts of evolutionary factor, but I don’t think “choose” is the correct word for a girl being restrained and raped by multiple adult men.
Punishment by rape
3/ Another use of gang rape was as punishment for violating tribal law. In this account from Merlan (1986) a woman recounts how she eloped from her assigned husband and, when she eventually returned, forced to submit to sex with a group of men. I’ve only seen reports of institutionalized gang rape from the areas which practiced subinicsion and introcision.
In the case of casual rape, if the victim was an uninitiated girl or not of the correct kinship status the rapist was put to death.
On the other hand, if the woman was married, the response was left up to the husband who often attacked both the victim and the perpetrator. (Roth, 1897)
Sharing
Group sex may once have been common. In Australia, men had sexual access to newly initiated girls they otherwise wouldn’t have. And while usually a husband had sexual rights to his wives (including lending), at certain celebrations he was required to share freely.
Diplomacy
more examples of women being traded and bring forced to go on sexual diplomatic missions
In general, men had more rights than women. Patrilocallity also meant that a clan often consisted of related males and unrelated females from neighboring clans
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).