Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/704

 CHAPTER XI

MESSENGERS AND MESSAGE-STICKS—BARTER AND TRADE CENTRES—GESTURE LANGUAGE

all tribes there are certain men who are, so to say, free of one or more of the adjacent tribes. This arises out of tribal intermarriage; and, indeed, marriages are sometimes arranged for what may be termed "state reasons," that is, in order that there may be means of sending ceremonial communications by some one who can enter and traverse a perhaps unfriendly country, with safety to himself and with security for the delivery of his message. In some cases these ceremonial messengers, as will be seen later on, are women. But the bearing of merely friendly messages within the tribe is usually by a relative of the sender. The message itself is, in other tribes, conveyed by what the whites in certain districts call a "blackfellow's letter "—a message-stick. There has been much misunderstanding, not to say misstatement, as to the real character of these message-sticks, and the conventional value of the markings on them. It has been said that they can be read and understood by the person to whom they are sent without the marks on them