Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/103

Rh power of importing food. Grey enumerates the kinds of food common to them, among which the Knownat, the gum of the swamp Mimosa, is a favorite; this was imagined by the first settlers to be a kind of grain, and to search for it an expedition was sent, as before noticed, to the Stirling Range. He reckons, also, six kinds of kangaroo, fourteen smaller animals, the native dog, and two opossums, twenty-nine starts of fish, besides occasionally the whale and seal, three of turtle, emu, wild turkey, and many other birds, especially water fowl. Turtle, tortoise, and shell fish, frogs, seven sorts of lizards, four kinds of grubs, twenty-nine roots, seven fungi, four gums, two kinds of manna, four fruits, four nuts, and two of the Zamia, which are poisonous without proper preparation, the seeds of many leguminous plants and the flowers of the Banksia. Most of those Grey himself had tasted, and some, as for instance the grubs, which might appear disgusting, he found most delicate eating. It is admitted that cannibalism is practised, and that not always from hunger; it is not however universal or common, and appears confined to some of the families of the North and East.

As the natives in their wild state live on the natural productions of the country, their weapons are suited for the chase as well as for war. These are the codja or hatchet, the meera or throwing stock, the guichi or spear, the dowark (a short stick which they throw with great force and precision or use as a club), and the kiley or boomerang, a curved piece of wood which they also throw with great skill, the gyrations of which now commonly known are yet very irregular and unaccountable. Some of the more northern use long narrow shields of soft wood with a handle in the centre, and the surface covered by small grooves in parallel lines, which