Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/736

710 One sent by the blacks to the westward was from the Bau totem (black eagle-hawk) to the Merkein totem (laughing jackass) of the Kuinmurbura tribe. It was a piece of rosewood about five inches by one and a half inch, and one inch thick.

The evidence shows that the message-sticks are merely a kind of tally, to keep record of the various heads of the message, and that the markings have no special meaning as conventional signs conveying some meaning. The instances which I have noted in the Narrang-ga and Mundainbura tribes merely show how such markings might, under favourable conditions, become the first steps to a system of conveying a message otherwise than verbally. What we find here may perhaps be considered as early stages, the ultimate result of which might be a system of writing, in which symbols would bear some resemblance to the original notches on these message-sticks.

All the tribes about Lake Eyre, and indeed far beyond it, use as a narcotic the dried leaves and twigs of the Pitcheri bush.

The Dieri, at the time when I was in their country, sent a party of able-bodied men annually to the Pitcheri country, on the Herbert River in Northern Queensland, a distance of some two hundred and fifty miles from their boundaries. This party had to pass through the country of several hostile tribes, and if necessary to fight their way. On arriving at the Pitcheri country, the leaves and small twigs of this bush were picked off. Small holes, two feet deep, were dug in the sand and heated with live coals. When the holes were sufficiently, heated they were cleaned out, the Pitcheri placed in them, covered up with hot sand, and then baked. When the sap had been evaporated, the Pitcheri was taken out and packed in netted bags or small wallaby skins, each man on the return of the party carrying a load of about seventy pounds.

Great preparations are made by the Dieri for the return