Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/376

350 Johnny, finding his skin hanging in a tree at Aitken's Straits, at the Gippsland Lakes, where the Dargo man had hung it, followed him southward and killed him at Erin Vale Station on Merriman's Creek.

At this point I take up the narrative given of this feud by Bundawal. He said:—

"I had two wives, both from Brt-britta. One of these had been married to the man who killed my brother Johnny at Aitken's Straits. I then collected all the men from Bruthen, Wy-Yung, and Binnajerra, for all my own men had died or been killed, so that there were only boys left. But those others were like my own people. We all sneaked round to Merriman's Creek, where we found a Dargo man, and Flanner speared him. We let him lie there, and did not eat his skin, because he was a Kurnai like ourselves. As he was a friend of the Brayaka, we went up to the Heart to look for them. We found a number of Dargo, Brayaka, and Bratua there, and we fought them; but we were beaten, because they had guns as well as spears, and were helped by two of the black police, and one police trooper. We ran away, and left everything behind us, only taking our spears. We had left our women near to the Lake's Entrance, at Metung, where the wild dog turned the Kurnai into stone. Our enemies and the police followed us as far as Lake Tyers, but they could not cross, and so we escaped. For a long time we were quiet, but at last we went to Manero to get the Brajerak to come and help us. By this time the white men had brought so many Brajerak from Manero and Omeo with them into Gippsland that we and they had become friendly. So we got the Manero men to promise to help us, and we went round the mountains to Omeo with them. There we got Nukong, their Headman, also to help us, and he sent a messenger to the men at the Ovens River and Mount Buffalo to send help, and it was arranged that we should meet them at the Bushy Park Station. When we got back we went to the meeting-place, where the men from the Ovens River and Mount Buffalo met us. We had gone