While most people have probably heard of the traditional custom of female "child brides" in some aboriginal groups (as it is indeed still an issue today), I for one had not heard before of the customary pederasty in some aboriginal groups:
Nowra notes evidence of "boy-wife arrangements that are known to have existed late into the end of the 19th century", citing the work of Carl Strehlow. "Pederasty is a recognised custom among the Arunta and has a name, kwalanga. It prevails especially among the Western Loritja and tribes north of the MacDonnell Range, the Katitja, Ilpara, Warramunga, etc. Commonly a man, who is fully initiated but not yet married, takes a boy 10 or 12 years old, who lives with him for several years."...Nowra comments: "Boys in a boy-wife arrangement were called chookadoo (about age five) or mullawongah (ages five to seven). Some boys could remain in such a marriage up until the age of 11 ... Even into the 1930s, there was evidence of homosexuality (among) the Kimberley Aborigines. The youths of 17 or 18 who were still unmarried would take boys of 10 or 11 as lovers.
"The women did not regard it as shameful and considered the practice a temporary substitute for marriage."
Heterosexual abuse gets a mention too:
Nowra's evidence of heterosexual abuse is just as compelling. For example, he says that "when a nine or 10-year-old girl was handed over to her husband, there was generally no sexual intercourse (until) after puberty" but notes anthropologist Phyllis Kaberry's caveat that "sexual intercourse without penetration did take place but infrequently".Anthropology has never been a huge interest for me, but common sense has always suggested that it is one of the "softest" sciences in which political and personal prejudices of academics in the field have played a huge role. It seems to me that such prejudices are behind the lack of common knowledge of the harshness of sexual and other aspects of many traditional aboriginal societies.
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Don't know about other countries, but here, our historians are most to blame for romanticizing Aboriginal culture, not anthropologists.
Strange how the white historians have done so much to white-wash the traditional culture, yet are also the first to blame the white invasion for everything that ails our Aboriginal population.
It's a lie that won't go away, and they created it. It's a disservice to everyone, but most especially the Aboriginal community, which continues to pay a hideous price for denying the nature of their traditional culture.
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