Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/282

256 I have done with you altogether." Then he speared his son, who died soon after. Berak, in telling me this, added that at that time he was a boy without whiskers. This would make the time about when Melbourne was established.

Women were stolen from one place or another. When this happened, the Headman (Nurungaeta) there sent a messenger to the offender to come and fight. On this the people on both sides met and fought—the men on one side with the men on the other—with boomerangs, spear, and shield; and the women with the women with their digging-sticks. Such thefts of women were between tribes of the Kulin nation. But more serious cases were those in which attacks were made on the Kulin by outside tribes, such as the Berbira from Gippsland.

Such a case was when these blacks came over the Great Dividing Range to where Mansfield now is, and in the night surrounded some of the Yirung-ilam tribe. The Berbira, said my informant, were round them in a double line, and killed a number of men and a number of the children, whose heads were left in a row on a log, and they carried off five women.

I may add that I had heard of this raid from the Kurnai, and was told that it was made in revenge for one made by the Brajerak some time before.

It was not common for a man to have more than one wife, but Berak remembered one who had three, one who had four, and one who had six. In the latter case the man was a noted hunter of game, and men gave him their daughters because he could supply them with much food. It was the duty of a man to care for his wife's father, to give things to him, such as opossum rugs, and to provide him with game, which was under this practice called Ngul-lurp. If the old man was ill, it was the duty of his son-in-law to go and take care of him. If there were a fight in which they took opposite sides, the son-in-law would take care not to do his father-in-law any harm. As in all other tribes, a man could not have any communication with his wife's mother, or her sister; nor could a woman look at or speak to her