BUYING "WIVES"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22845, 28 September 1937, Page 16

BUYING "WIVES"

PEIEST SECURES 121 NOVEL PROTECTION METHOD SAFETY FROM TRIBAL LAW [from our own correspondent! SYDNEY, Sept. 21 Owner of 121 "wives," whom lie has bought at his mission at Bathurst Island, near Darwin, at an average cost of £2 a head, Consignor Francis Gscll, the Roman Catholic administrator of the Northern Territory diocese, is at present in Sydney on lea\e. Monsignor Gsell, a grey-beaided patriarchal figure, told the story of how the idea of buying aboriginal women to protect them first occuned to him. His great frame shook with laughter whenever his many "wives were mentioned. , "I have beeu buying wives for the last 23 years," lie said, "and I believe I have more than anyone else in tho world to-day. My total up to a few weeks ago was 141 wives, but 21 have died. Since I came to Sydney I have acquired yet another wife.

How the Schsme Started "It was early in 1914 that I began acquiring my wives. An old man came to the mission one day and demanded his wife, tho wife being 10 years old. A woman in the Territory is always married before she is born and nevfer becames a widow, because, if her husband dies, she is married by another man. Sometimes she is married even before her first husband is actually dead. "This girl-wife asked for mv help, but I was powerless to oppose native law, and the okl man took her away. In four days sho was back with a spear wound from her husband in the thigh, and a few hours afterward the old man arrived with his tribe. They demanded the girl back. Playing for time, I told them I would talk to them the next morning. News Sent To Tribes "That night the thought came to me. Why not buy her? It was a new idea. -It might work. And so in the morning I spread out a heap of trade goods —knives, flour, tobacco —and put my propositio i to the irato husband. He was dazzled; he took tho bait and in a few minutes i bought my first wife. After that the smoke signals sent round the word that 'Ngercngani'—as I am known to the natives—was a wife buyer, and the applications were fairly plentiful. My 142 wives have cost mo £2 each in goods." Monsignor Gsell explained that, according to tribal law, even when he gave his wives away in marriage to the boys on the island it was really only on loan, because if a boy died the wife reverted to himself again. His experiment in wife-buying had been entirely successful. It made the child free and prevented child marriage and polygamy—grave evils in the native system in the north, because most marriages were between old men and very young girls. Native Divorce Methods

When a girl was born she was already married. She was, however, given an "ampranua," or son-in-law, the bo.v having the right of marriage over all the girl's daughters, which meant that the boy had to wait until his mother-in-law grew up, married, and had daughters before he could marry. , j ; •"I think people might like to hear about the latest methods of native divorce," added Monsignor Gsell. "An old man might decide to divorce his wife—usually after she has run away and been brought back about a dozen times. The wife is placed against a tree by the tribe, and the husband is given 10 spears. It is a case of trial by ordeal at 30 yards. If she survives siie is a divorced woman, but there is always someone willing to marry her after the tenth spear has been thrown unsuccessfully."