Politics

Before the colonization of Australia, The aboriginal Australian understood neither the cultivation of the land nor the rearing of sheep and cattle. The dingo was their only "domestic" animal. They took shelter in caves and in primitive huts. They had no food but the natural products of the earth. They knew a very primitive form of fire-making and their traditional cooking was very crude. They have no knowledge of metal work. Their weapons were the flint-headed spear, the axe and the wooden boomerang. They wore no clothing at all. Living like this on the point of starvation may have gone on for thousands of years.

The ceremonies were kept secret and are directed by a "Birraark" or sorcerer, usually an old man. The candidates are instructed in the history of their Totem and on the power of the Birraark. They were initiated into the mystery of the Totem, usually accompanied by an ordeal such as circumcision and then they were tattooed with a seal of identity that marks them for a given Totem and a given generation in that Totem. In this way is constructed the simple system of relationship of the aboriginal Australian before British colonization. The mother took a predominant role, for descent was almost always reckoned through females. Parent, child, brother and sister were the only recognized relationships. Rudimentary as this system may appear to be, it is widely spread among the Malay Archipelago and prevails widely among primitive peoples everywhere.

Lewis H. Morgan author of Ancient Society considers the American Indians to be the link between the primitive and patriarchal state of society.

The patriarchal state of society consists of two stages, tribe and clan. The tribe is a large group of hundreds of members who descend from one common male ancestor, sometimes from a fictitious character satisfying the etiquette that descent from the male is the only basis of society. The clan, on the other hand, is a smaller group reaching back into the past for only four generations or so to a common well-known male ancestor. The clan always breaks down into smaller units when its limit is reached. According to the Scottish historian W. F. Skene in volumen 3 of Celtic Scotland, the tribe or larger unit is the oldest. When the tribe breaks down, clans are formed. When the clan system breaks down, it leaves the households or families as independent units. Finally, with the withering away of patriarchal society, the family is dissolved and the individual comes into existence.

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