Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/394

368 from the south, the Wotjobaluk, might come and attack them, they requested a white man who was with them to sleep in the opening of a horseshoe-shaped screen of boughs, which they built round their camp. They said that their enemies would not step over a white man, but would otherwise come in among them and put cords on their throats, and thus having choked them, would carry them off and take their fat.

One old Mekigar of this tribe was seen sitting in the camp with a piece of reed in his hand, which he stuck from time to time in the ground, bringing up on it something like meat. It was said that he was catching some one at a distance, and bringing up some of his fat.

The Wotjobaluk practised this fat-taking apparently to a great extent. Here is the account of the fat-taking powers of their medicine-men (Bangal) as given to me by one of the old men of the tribe. As usual, the favourite plan is to sneak on the victim when asleep. As soon as the Bangal is near enough to see the man by the light of the fire, he swings the Yulo (bone) round his head, and launches it at him. It is supposed to dart into him invisibly, and compel him to come out of his camp to the medicine-man, who throws him over his shoulder and carries him to a convenient spot. Or, if he was acquainted with the man, he would manage to arrive at his camp late, so as to be asked to remain for the night. Pretending to sleep, he watches until his host is in a sound slumber, when he passes his Yulo under his knees, round his neck, and through the loop of the cord attached to it, and so carries him a little way from the camp.

This old man also gave me an account of the manner in which the fat is always taken, whether the victim was noosed by the Yulo or knocked down by a blow on the back of the neck with the Breppen, that is a club with a knob at the end. The victim is laid on his back and the medicine-man sits astride of his chest, cuts him open on the right side below the ribs, and abstracts the fat. Then bringing the edges together, and singing his spell, he bites them together to make them join without a visible scar. Then he retires to a