Jono wrote:
I google this and I can't find evidence that Australian aborigines actually endorse gang rape as cultural practice. Everything I've read suggests that they don't, and that was stated so by the traditional leaders themselves, although there seems to be attitude among some Australian judges that rape is "traditional".
Well, here is something, regarding the Aranda Aborigines in Northern Territory.
http://dice.missouri.edu/docs/australia ... Aranda.pdfQuote:
4.18 Do females enjoy sexual freedoms?
No. Women are often forced into sexual relations with men other than their husband: --“At times, a man will lend his wife to a stranger as an act of courtesy, always provided that he belongs to the right section” (the same section he belongs to). In the normal marriage, “the woman is private property of one man and no one without his consent can have access to her, though he may lend her privately to individuals who stand in the same relationship to her as her husband does”. --“In the case of women who attend the corrobboree [a meeting ceremony of several people], it is supposed to be the duty of every man at different times to send his wife to the ground” in which other men are allowed to have sex with the woman. “The individuals concerned have no choice.”
4.19 Evidence of giving gifts to extramarital partners or extramarital offspring.
--This does not occur. Extramarital sex does not even frequently occur. It only takes place when: a husband gives another man “sexual access” to his wife as an act of courtesy or appeasement; or when a husband gives several men sexual access to his wife at a meeting ceremony. The act of sex in both cases is viewed as a duty or social contract.
Feminists and Christians would both be outraged. But, coitus is a part of life, and every society must determine the procedures by which its members are to gain access to coitus. Aranda ladies have to perform in an occasional gang-bang, and have to perform coitus with anyone whom their husbands say. Plus, they have to marry at the age of 14 or 15. This isn't any worse than modern humans using the internet to find coital partners.
Regarding marriage
Quote:
4.17 Preferential category for spouse (e.g., cross cousin)
--OLDER TRADITIONAL TIMES: The Aranda social organization was based on exogamous intermarrying groups. The Aranda people are divided into two halves or moieties. These moieties are called “Mberga oknirra” and “Mberga tungwa”. The moieties are then also divided into two groups, forming four sections. Each of these four sections can be again divided into two groups, forming eight sub-sections. Males in one moiety must marry females from a select sub-section from the other moiety and vice versa. Another way to look at this is to say a man marries the daughter of his mother’s mother’s brother’s daughter. The systems practical result is to prevent close interbreeding and to bring about the mating of men and women belonging to different localities and different families.
--“Marriages were originally arranged between families on a promise system, although this system has been increasingly eroded up to the present time. Today, people are just as likely to marry "sweethearts" as they are to marry into the "correct" families. The prescribed marriage category for a man is mother's mother's brother's daughter's daughter, but other categories have always been allowed.”
They were typically assigned to their second cousins. But, it looks like they didn't necessarily see a link between coitus and conception.
Quote:
4.13 What is the belief of the role of males in conception; is paternity partible? Are these “other fathers” recognized? -
-“Souls of legendary ancestors associated with totems floated through the air and impregnated women, and their souls were thus burn again. Except for Roheim, fieldworkers among the Aranda claimed that they denied the role of males in paternity.” (4)
4.14 What is the belief of the mother’s role in procreation exactly? (e.g., “receptacle in which fetus grows”)
-In older times (around the 1930s when Spencer and Gillen published their Aranda ethnography), it was believed that totems entered into the bodies of women and impregnated them. Therefore, ancestral spirits were responsible for the conception; the mother was responsible for birthing the baby.
21 Jan 2013, 1:43 pm
