Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/326

300 to the small tribal group in whose country my depôt was fixed. My first stage was to a pool of water, from which I could make a good departure northwards. At this place the young man ran away after dark, being alarmed, as he afterwards told me, at the precautions I took for the safety of the party during the night. With my own blackboy I tracked him in the morning to a camp of his tribe at a small pool in the river-bed, about two miles distant. Here the Pinnaru, after satisfying himself that I meant no harm to the guide or to his people, sent two of his men to bring the refugee from the place where he was concealed, and handed him over with an admonition not to run away again. Here was an exercise of authority, and obedience to it.

When in the Yaurorka country I camped for the night near the encampment of one of the small groups of that tribe. Some of the old men, the Pinnanrus of the place, came to visit me, and asked me to go with them to see the Pinna-pinnaru (the "Great-great-one"), who could not come to see me. I went with them and found, sitting in one of the huts, the oldest blackfellow I had ever seen. The other Pinnarus were mostly grey-headed and bald, but he was so old as to be almost childish, and was covered with a grizzly fell of hair from head to foot. The respect with which he was treated by the other old men was as marked in them as the respect which they received from the younger men. They told me that he was so old that he could not walk, and that when they travelled some of the younger men carried him.

Such Headmen as those of the Dieri tribe appear to be found in the neighbouring tribes, but no doubt Jalina-piramurana was an exceptionally able and therefore an unusually influential man.

It may be mentioned here that the old men, in their leisure time, instructed the younger ones in the laws of the tribe, impressing on them modesty of behaviour and propriety of conduct, as they understood it, and pointing out to them the heinousness of incest. The old women also instructed the young ones in the same manner.