ming the
surname of the children of either sex. And another, connected with this,
forbids a man from marrying with a woman of his own family name. Each
family has for its crest or sign, or _kobong_, as they call it, some
animal or vegetable; and a certain mysterious connexion is supposed to
exist between a family and its _kobong_; so that a member of the family
will never kill an animal of the same species with his _kobong_, should
he find it asleep; indeed, he always kills it reluctantly, and never
without affording it a chance of escape.[45] This arises from the family
belief that some one individual of the species is their nearest friend,
to kill whom would be a great crime, and is to be carefully avoided.
And, in like manner, a native having a vegetable for a _kobong_ may not
gather it under certain circumstances, and at a particular period of
the year. It is said that they occasionally exchange surnames with
their friends, a custom which is supposed to have prevailed among the
Jews; and they have another practice resembling the same people, which
is, that when a husband dies, his brother takes the wife.[46] Among
beings who hold life so cheaply, it cannot be a matter of surprise that
the destruction of infants should be occasionally practised, more
especially in cases where the child is born with any natural deformity:
nor is it an excuse for these barbarians that the polished nations of
ancient Greece and Italy habitually committed the like atrocities, or
even greater,--considering it in their own choice to rear up their
offspring or not, exactly as it suited their convenience. In fact,
we may learn from this and many other instances, that it is not
_civilisation_ alone, but yet more than that, _Christianity_, by which
the difference between the European and the Australian is produced:--

"In vain are arts pursued, or taste refin'd,
Unless Religion purifies the mind."

[45] These facts may account for the statement mentioned by Collins, of
a native throwing himself in the way of a man who was about to shoot a
crow, whence it was supposed that the bird was an object of worship,
which notion is, however, contradicted by the common practice of eating
crows, of which birds the natives are very fond.--See COLLINS' _Account
of the Colony of New South Wales_, p. 355.

Two young natives, to whom Mr. Oxley had given a tomahawk, discovered
the _broad arrow_, with which it was marked on both sides,