Among the natives of Kimberley, Western Australia (who are by no
means of low type, quick and intelligent, with special aptitudes for
learning languages and music), if a wife is not obtainable for a young man
he is presented with a boy-wife between the ages of 5 and 10 (the age when
a boy receives his masculine initiation). The exact nature of the
relations between the boy-wife and his protector are doubtful; they
certainly have connection, but the natives repudiate with horror and
disgust the idea of sodomy.[40]
Further light is thrown on homosexuality in Australia by the supposition
of Spencer and Gillen that the _mika_ operation (urethral subincision), an
artificial hypospadias, is for the purpose of homosexual intercourse.
Klaatsch has discussed the homosexual origin of the _mika_ operation on
the basis of information he received from missionaries at Niol-Niol, on
the northwest coast. The subincised man acts as a female to the as yet
unoperated boys, who perform coitus in the incised opening. Both informed
Klaatsch in 1906 that at Boulia in Queensland the operated men are said to
"possess a vulva.
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