Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/107

102 After one of these successful assassinations, when all the members of the tribe have returned to the camp for the night, the bangal carries the body of the dead bukeen to where it is certain to be discovered soon; in all probability, indeed, he feigns an excuse to send some one off in the direction of the dead bukeen, when, of course, discovery ensues.

The bangals are quite wise enough to be aware of the value of these legerdemain kind of tricks in keeping up their prestige in the tribes; therefore they never by any chance fail to put them in practice whenever a favourable opportunity occurs. 

CHAPTER XII.

OF THEIR loondthals (HUTS), AND MODE OF CONSTRUCTION; THE COINCIDENCES EXISTING BETWEEN PRE-HISTORICAL MAN AND THESE ABORIGINES, AS SHOWN BY VARIOUS IMPLEMENTS, &c.

It is just possible, by the stretch of a very fertile imagination to assign the name of village to an assemblage of aboriginal huts, but such a liberty with the English language could only be permitted to one possessing a highly poetical organisation, as a number of these habitations gathered together in one spot is merely an encampment, and one of the very rudest too.

There is never the slightest attempt at order in the arrangement or placing of these primitive defences against the weather, each one being erected according to the necessity