Thread by @MungoManic

Many Australian tribes thought babies resulted from reincarnation rather than sex. One tribe described how a tiny spirit would meet a woman, throw a small club at a her big toe and enter her body through the wound. (Mathews, 1900)

Yes, a small number of founders can have an over-sized effect on their descendants, especially when the populations are isolated as in Australia

https://x.com/AdamHow51636314/status/1821726390179524682

Merlan (1986) says some tribes understood physical paternity but that others apparently didn't. Rather than pregnancy, sex was associated with pleasure, rituals and punishment. It was also seen as the cause of female puberty and menstrual periods

https://x.com/biomanzilla/status/1821722374401630576

Infanticide was pretty widespread but I've only seen a few reports of infants being eaten. During colonization children of European fathers were especially targeted, often by their fathers (Roth, 1897)

https://x.com/NeverThatLate/status/1821725729123660214

Or maybe agriculture and animal husbandry resulted in a greater understanding of sexual reproduction. No animals were ever bred or domesticated in Australia

https://x.com/optionvalue/status/1821720680930435175

In Australia, sex was a part of every woman's life. Female initiation often involved sex with multiple men. There was also a practice where a woman would be assigned a husband before she was even conceived

https://x.com/biomanzilla/status/1821722700697804929

Assigning men unborn wives was one way. And most tribes were divided into two or more social classes (moieties) with in-class marriage punishable by death. There was also an emphasis on exogamy and obtaining wives from distant clans

https://twitter.com/caobach/status/1821768851727774187

Australian tribal laws regarding social relationships and who could marry who were mind-numbingly complex. One effect was low cases of incest but I doubt that was the original reason

Like all animals, we do things instinctively that keep us alive and create healthy children. And natural selection works on cultures too. There may have been groups in Australia which allowed incest but those groups quickly died out

https://twitter.com/jeffnfox/status/1821779807627358308

The mother's husband was usually considered the father. But "fatherhood" could also be determined by
- "Finding" the child (recognizing pregnancy)
- Directing spirit-children to women
- Totemic associations
- Ritual roles
- Post-birth nurturing

https://x.com/occultiscool/status/1821993013532676515

In many areas, girls didn't marry until after their first menses. But some tribes in Arnhem Land, Tiwi and central Australia believed that men having sex with their pre-pubescent wives helped induce maturation. (Merlan, 1986)

https://x.com/solarrayscult/status/1821923187245855042

Australian tribes were gerontocracies where the elders held sway. Usually this meant the old men but old women sometimes had influence too

https://x.com/PitagoRa10078/status/1822028483851083807