Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/273

V pursue him, and if he were caught they would kill and bury him. My Wotjobaluk informants said that this was always done in the old times before white men came; but that they did not do as their western neighbours did, namely, eat him. It was the duty of the woman's father and brothers, in such a case, to kill her. This was confirmed to me by a Mukjarawaint man, who said that if a man took a woman who was of the same Yauerin as himself, the pursuers, if they caught him, killed him, and with the exception of the flesh of the thighs and upper arms, which were roasted and eaten, they chopped the body into small pieces, and left them lying on a log. The flesh was eaten by his totemites, including even his brothers. This he said was also the custom of the Jupagalk.

A Krokitch man from the Tatiara country, being on a visit to the Wotjobaluk, carried off a Krokitch girl from the Wimmera River; but, although pursued, he made his escape to his own country. The pursuers felt it to be a great disgrace to them, not only that one of their women should have so misbehaved, but that they had not been able to overtake and punish the man who had taken her away.

When a man ran off with the wife of another, the husband, accompanied by all the men at the camp, married and single, who were not related to her, pursued the fugitives. If caught, the man would be severely beaten by the pursuers, and the woman either speared, perhaps in the legs, or be given to the men who had followed her to be common to them for a time. It sometimes happened that such a case was made up by the man giving presents to the husband, such as opossum rugs, weapons, and other things as her equivalent.

The following shows how marriage by capture occurred in the Wotjobaluk tribe. A White-cockatoo man, who lived at a place called Ledcort, dreamed that a Black-cockatoo man of Mukpilli had burned some of his hair. This he told to the men of his totem, and it was arranged that an armed party (Yul-yul) should be made to kill that man, and