Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/131

 IGNORANCE AND SUPERSTITION. 69 I remarked that many things that were interesting to us they only regarded with stupid wonder. I remember an instance of this. I showed some natives one day a picture of the interior of a splendid cathedral, but they could not understand it, and evinced no admiration at all. I then showed them another view, in the foreground of which was a wheelbarrow. This they recognised at once, and went into raptures over itit was such an exact likeness of our wheelbarrow. But there was not only ignorance to contend with, but superstition, and very active and antagonistic heathenism. I was very soon brought into opposition to the customs of the natives. The first time I came into conflict with heathenism will afford a good illustration of the sort of battle we constantly had to fight. It was on this wise. One day four girls of about sixteen years of age came and begged me to allow them to sleep in my kitchen, because they desired to escape from some relatives who wished to give them in marriage to men whom they did not like. As their mothers seconded their entreaties I consented to let them do so, never thinking any serious harm would come of it. They did this for two nights. On the third night we were all just thinking of going to bed, when a knock was heard at our front door. I went and opened it, and found about a dozen natives, armed with spears and kanikis, standing outside. I asked what they wanted. One of them, Bullocky House Bob, stepped forward, and said that they had come for his daughter, who was one of the girls in the kitchen, named Pompanyeripuritye. And he gave me to understand that they meant to have her. I tried to persuade her father to leave her, but it was of no use; she had to go with them, very unwillingly. Before they left, they said they did not like these girls to sleep in the kitchen, as they might eat some flour out of a bag from which the narumbar had partaken. The narumbar were the youths who were being made young men and, according to custom, were forbidden to eat with women lest they should grow ugly. I tried to assure them there was no danger of this, and they departed. Next morning, just after breakfast, a tremendous hubbub arose at the camps on the hill