Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/792

766 But if a man only killed enough game, or procured enough other food for himself, his wife, and children, then he need not divide with others; but if he found that his father had no food, he would give them what he had procured, and go out and look for more. Similarly if his wife's father had no food, and no son to provide for him, he would give him some, and seek more himself. On the other hand, if he had none, and his wife's father had a supply, the latter would send him some by his daughter. The old people used to say to the young that people should divide their food with others, and particularly with the old people and the young. They said that Bunjil was pleased when he saw that the old people and the children were provided for.

The care displayed in these people for the aged is shown in other ways. In this tribe when a man became so old that he could not travel, his son, or his wife's brother, or his daughter's husband, carried him from camp to camp. It must be remembered that these arc not merely individuals, but a group in each case, who would recognise the liability individually. I have known many instances of this kind, including several cases among the Kurnai of men carrying their wives about the country when too old or too sick to walk.

In the tribes within fifty miles of Maryborough in Queensland, people were very good to their old or sick relatives, carrying them about on stretchers.

In the Dalebura tribe a woman who had been a cripple from her birth was carried about by the tribes-people in turn, and this was done until her death, when she was over sixty years of age.

On one occasion several of them rushed into a swollen stream to rescue an old drowning woman whose death would have been a relief to herself.

There was also an instance of a mother watching her sick child and refusing all food, and when it died she was inconsolable.

There is a passage in Protector Thomas's report to Governor La Trobe which is worth quoting as giving the