Page:Dawson - Australian aborigines (1900).djvu/85

Rh When the person who has been named by the deceased, and who has been warned of his intended fate, seeks safety by keeping away from his tribe, his enemies search for him for two moons; and, as he must hunt for food, he is sometimes discovered. When his enemies see him, they all keep out of sight except one man, who approaches him in a friendly way, and, in course of conversation, directs his attention to something up a tree, or in the distance. Being off his guard, he is suddenly knocked down. The others, who have been watching, immediately rush on their victim, catch him by the throat, throw him on his face, and hold him down, while one cuts open his back with a sharp flint knife, and pulls out the kidney fat, afterwards stuffing the hole with a tuft of grass. A piece of the fat is rolled up in grass and thrown over the shoulder of the operator, who then seats the man against a tree with a burning stick in his hand, and, retiring backwards with his eyes fixed on him, picks up the fat, which he wraps in opossum skin and carries away. This kidney fat is afterwards presented to his chief, who fixes it on his spear-thrower, as a charm to ensure his spear going straight and fatally. After a while the wounded man walks home, with the grass still in the wound, and, as his case is hopeless, no effort is made to remove it, and nothing is done for him. He walks about for a day or two, and eats his food as if nothing had happened, but soon dies.

Sometimes the enemy is killed by strangling. He is watched by three or four men, who are provided with a tough rope, made of the inner bark of the stringybark tree. A running noose is made on the rope; they throw the noose over his head, and pull—one man at each end of the rope—till he is choked.

Intending murderers always disguise themselves with coloured clay; their victim cannot, therefore, easily recognize them. But as, if he do not die immediately, he is expected to name his murderers, he often fixes on the wrong persons. When these are killed in retaliation, a feud is begun; and thus there is kept up a constant destruction of life. If the attack upon the supposed spell-thrower should take place near a camp, and he should be killed, his murderer is at once chased by every able-bodied man present, and, if caught, is put to death on the spot. Every pursuer thrusts four spears into his body, and leaves them there. His friends, who have been watching the result at a distance, wait till the pursuers go away, and then burn the body and all the spears which were thrust into it, and which are sometimes so numerous as to be likened to 'spines in a