Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/715

XI river, as he proceeded, for each station fed regularly six to twelve blacks, the men riding after cattle, the women herding milkers, washing, etc. Other messengers were sent on the same business in other directions.

The means of communication by the Geawe-gal and neighbouring, and even more distant, tribes was by persons having the character of heralds. Their persons were sacred even among hostile tribes. From occasional residences in distant places many of them acquired different dialects fluently. Other men, engaged in affairs of less moment, may be termed "special messengers." They also were respected scrupulously, but perhaps their persons were not so sacred as those of the heralds, under certain conditions, and their journeys were made in safer territories. A herald would be selected for dangerous latitudes.

With the Gringai a messenger can pass in safety from one tribe to another. The red-coloured net which is worn round the forehead is usually an emblem for calling the tribe together. When a messenger is within sound of the camp to which he is sent, he gives a particular "coo-ee," when all hearing it assemble to hear what he has to say, but not a word is spoken to him till he thinks it proper to unburden his message, and sometimes he sits quite silent for a long time. When, however, he unburdens his mind, his eloquence is wonderful, and he is listened to with the greatest attention. No message -sticks were used in this tribe.

My Jajaurung informant, whose father married a woman of the Jupagalk tribe, and whose maternal grandmother was of the Leitchi-leitchi tribe, was one of those men who were sent on important messages. He was free of three tribes, first on account of his father, who lived with the Jupagalk, also on account of his mother and grandmother, as well as of his own tribe the Jajaurung. Thus he became a messenger and intermediary between these tribes. His mother's sister was married to a Jajaurung man who lived at Charlotte Plains, and her son took care of a stone quarry at that place, from which the tribes to the