Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/339

VI Headmen by a passage in Knopwood's account of Colonel Collins' attempt to form a settlement in Port Phillip Bay in the year 1803. A party who were surveying "at the north-west point of the bay" were met by a number of natives, who, on a shot being fired over their heads, "ran away a small distance, but soon approached again with the king, who wore a very elegant turban crown and was always carried upon the shoulders of the men. Whenever he desired them to halt, or to approach, they did it immediately." The fact that he was carried by his men may, however, mean no more than that he was from some cause unable to walk.

In reference to the office of the man for which I have thought the expression "henchman" not inappropriate, it may be observed that he stands a little at one side of, and to the rear of, his principal. The henchman of Ningu-labul was the brother of Berak's father, Bebejan, whose henchman was a man named Winberi. These men seem to have had the same position as "the friend," who, Mr. Dawson says, accompanied the "Chief" of one of the tribes described by him.

In the Yerkla-mining tribe the medicine-men are the Headmen, and are called Mobung-bai, from mobung, "magic." They decide disputes, arrange marriages, and, under certain circumstances, settle the formalities to be observed in combats by ordeal, and conduct the ceremonies of initiation. They cut the gashes which, when healed, denote the class of the bearer, or his hardihood and prowess. In fact, they wield authority in the tribe, and give orders where others only make requests.

In the Narrang-ga tribe the office of Headman was hereditary from father to son, and there was one in each of the four tribal divisions. The eldest of them was most considered. One Headman, who was living in the year 1887, was a man probably over eighty years of age, and therefore was alive before the establishment of Adelaide, and he