Page:Dawson - Australian aborigines (1900).djvu/84

 CHAPTER XVI.

AVENGING OF DEATH.

person, who believes that sorcery and incantations are the cause of his illness, intimates to his friends the number of persons in the suspected tribe whom they are to kill. Sometimes the individual who is believed to be the cause of his illness is named by the dying person.

When the offending tribe is not otherwise revealed, the question is decide, after the body has been put up into the tree, by watching the course taken by the first maggot which drops from the body and crawls over the clean-swept ground underneath. If the body has been buried, the surface of the grave is swept and smoothed carefully; then the first ant which crosses it indicates the direction of the tribe which caused the death of the deceased. If possible, one of the members of that tribe must be killed.

A consultation takes place, and when an individual is fixed upon as the cause of the death, he receives warning that his life will be taken. If he escapes for two moons, he is free. Immediately after the warning, a small party of the male friends and relatives of the deceased prepare themselves by eating sparingly for two or three days, and getting together, each for himself, a supply of cooked food. When ready to start, they paint and disguise themselves, that they may not be recognized by the friends of the person whom they intend to kill. They proceed, well armed, by night to the vicinity of the residence occupied by their intended victim. It is difficult to surprise a camp, owing to the watchfulness and ferocity of the dogs belonging to it. The attacking party, therefore, form a wide circle, and gradually close round the wuurn, guiding each other by uttering cries in imitation of nocturnal animals. At the dawn of day, which is the time of the deepest sleep with the aborigines, and when it is sufficiently light to distinguish the person they wish to kill, they rush on their victim, drag him out of his bed, and spear him without the slightest resistance from himself or his friends, who, paralyzed with terror, lie perfectly still. After the departure of the attacking party, the friends cut up the body and burn it. No reason is given for this custom.