Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/426

 406 other, and with them separately he killed all the people who had killed his friend.

This is how the Dieri got the custom of killing by "pointing the bone."

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The liver is regarded by these tribes as the seat of the affections. The Woma, or carpet-snake, is prized as an article of food. The reptiles hide in cracks in the sun-dried earth, from whence they are dug by the blacks. The Kapiri is the iguana, or lace-lizard.

A second "patron" of the boy Kuyimokuna was also associated in the "pointing of the bone" in some versions of the legend. Both avenged the death of the boy by "giving the bone" in common to the murderers of Kuyimokuna. For this reason it is almost always the case that two persons act together in "giving the bone;" one who points with it and also ties the end of the hair-cord which is fastened to it, tightly round his upper arm, in order that the blood may be driven through into the bone. The other person holds the end of another cord fastened to the bone, and goes through the same motions as he who is holding the bone. The bones of Kuyimokuna were divided into pieces and sent, as we would say, "to all points of the compass," carrying death wherever they came.

When all those who had taken part in the death of the boy Kuyimokuna had been done to death by his two champions, these two met the survivors of the people at a place called Nari-wolpu (nari is "death" in Dieri, and wolpu, "bone," in Wonkanguru). When the murder was discussed at this meeting the principal champion of Kuyimokuna took two small staves of wood in his hand, tied them fast together with a cord, and buried them in the earth. " See," said he, turning to one of the survivors after the other and addressing each in turn. " Thou mournest for thy neji (elder brother), thou for thy ngaperi (father), &c., and I for my tidnara (sister's son). We are all alike mourning for relations, let us now once more live in peace with each other and bury the whole affair." Out of this arose the custom called Pinti madi ya nguru, fast and unbreakable agreement—from pinti, agreement; madi, heavy, weighty; ya, and; nguru, strong.

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Two young Mura-muras were annoyed with their father, the old Mura-mura Nganto-warrina, because ho had gathered some nardoo