Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/793

XII customs of the Wurunjerri and other neighbouring tribes when the State of Victoria was first settled. He says:—

"In the Kulin tribes, they seldom travel more than six miles a day. In their migratory movements all are employed. Children are getting gum, knocking down birds; women are digging up roots, killing bandicoots, getting grubs; the men hunting and scaling trees for opossums. They are mostly at the encampment an hour before sundown; the women first, who get fire and water; by this time their spouses arrive. They hold that the bush and all it contains are men's general property; that private property is only what utensils are carried in the bag; and this general claim to nature's bounty extends even to the success of the day; hence at the close, those who have been successful divide with those who have not been, so 'that none lacketh while others have it,' nor is the gift considered as a favour, but as a right, brought to the needy and thrown down at his feet."

So far as I know, the throwing down of food on the ground arises out of the fear of receiving anything from the hand of another person and thus being infected by evil magic.

In the Gringai tribe game taken in hunting is usually divided equally.

All the males in the Chepara tribe are expected to provide food, if not sick. If a man is lazy and stays in camp, he is jeered at and insulted by the others. Men, women, and children leave the camp in the early morning for the purpose of hunting for food where they think that game will be plentiful. After hunting sufficiently, the men and women carry the various catches of game to the nearest water-hole, where fires are made and the game cooked. The men, women, and children all eat together amicably, the food being distributed among them by the old men equally to all the men, women, and children. After the meal, the women carry what is left of the cooked food to the camp, the men hunting by the way. In this tribe a man is not bound to provide his wife's parents with food,