Note 3 — Chapter II · HUNTERS AND FISHERS.

What general causes may there be? Spencer, speaking of hunters, says: “In the absence of industrial activity, slaves are almost useless; and, indeed, where game is scarce, are not worth their food”3. It is true, where food is more plentiful than it is among most hunters, slaves can be of more use; but we cannot think that the only cause why slavery does not exist, is that the slave is “not worth his food”, i.e. that the produce of a man’s labour cannot much exceed his own primary wants. For we meet with several instances, among these tribes, of people whose wants are provided for by the labour of others. In our first Part we saw, that the Australian men depend largely for their subsistence on the work of their wives. Some other statements are indicative of a similar state of things. Dawson says of the natives of the Western District of Victoria: “Great respect is paid to the chiefs and their wives and families. They can command the services of every one belonging to their tribe. As many as six young bachelors are obliged to wait on a chief, and eight young unmarried women on his wife; and as the children are of superior rank to the common people, they also have a number of attendants to wait on them.… Food and water, when brought to the camp, must be offered to them first, and reeds provided for each in the family to drink with, while the common people drink in the usual way. Should they fancy any article of dress, opossum rug, or weapon, it must be given without a murmur”4. And of the chiefs of the Andaman Islanders we are told: “They and their wives are at liberty to enjoy immunity from the drudgery incidental to their mode of life, all such acts being voluntarily performed for them by the young unmarried persons living under their headship”5.