Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/360

334 black on one side of their bodies and white on the other side. The face was as black as charcoal and grease could make it, except the nose, which was red-ochred.

A man of one of the neighbouring tribes was living with the Wiimbaio, but became suspected. They thought that he might return to his own tribe and take something with him which had belonged to some Wiimbaio person, and by which he might do that person harm. They also thought that he might take away with him one of their women. Therefore he was doomed by the old men, and when out hunting with the other men, they all threw their spears at him and killed him.

In the Wotjobaluk tribe private quarrels were settled on the spot by the parties. If their anger was very hot, possibly in the camp, otherwise in the open near it. Each man would be armed with the weapon called by them the Lai-auwil (the Laiangal of the Wurunjerri), and they would fight till blood was drawn and their anger appeased. The friends would interfere if it seemed likely that their man would be injured or killed. After the combat, if they still remained at variance, some woman, such as the mother or sister of one of them, would go to them, and reason with them, and persuade them to be friends.

When a serious offence occurred and the offender belonged to some one of the other local divisions, the custom was to send a messenger (Wirri-gir) to call on him to come forward and undergo punishment. In such a case, if he were a man of consequence, or if the affair caused much feeling among the people, all the totemites of each of the men assembled under their respective Headmen at the place agreed on.

Such a case occurred in the Mukjarawaint tribe, and was reported to me by a man of the Garchuka totem, whose brother and maternal grandfather had for some matter of personal offence killed a man of the black snake (Wulernunt) totem. They speared him at night, when sleeping in his camp, and escaped, but were seen and recognised by his wife. The relatives of the deceased sent a Wirri-gir to