Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/132

 70 NATIVE QUARREL. opposite my house. The notion had got abroad that the young women had eaten the flour of the narumbar in my kitchen, and the desecrated youths and their friends had in revenge fired the wurleys and attacked the relatives of the girls, and so a general fight began. I ran up, followed by my wife and a friend who was staying with me, and found that broken heads were becoming rather plentiful. There were about a hundred people earnestly endeavouring to knock each other’s brains out. Some were bleeding on the ground, and women were wailing over them; others were tittering hoarse shouts and yells of defiance as they flourished their weapons or brought them into contact with their adversaries’ heads. Women were dancing about naked, casting dust in the air, hurling obscene language at their enemies, and encouraging their friends. It was a perfect tempest of rage. I felt rather vexed at their foolishness, so I went amongst them and shouted that this fighting must cease. As I stood there, trying by persuasions and commands to stop the scrimmage, my wife saw Dick Baalpulare go deliberately behind a bush at a little distance from me and hurl a heavy spear at my head. It just missed me, going about an inch from the top of my head, I did not see it or know anything about it till afterwards. The women standing near my wife begged her to go home, as the men were going to kill me. However, after a good lot of trouble, I managed to stop the fight and get the natives to go back to their camps. But I found that I was blamed by both parties as the cause of the quarrel, through letting the girls sleep in my kitchen. I gave Dick Baalpulare a good rating afterwards for being such a rascal. I had my revenge on him though, for a snake bit him one day, and I had the pleasure of curing him. For six months after taking up our abode with the natives my principal work was visitation of the camps, as we had very few facilities for having a school for the children. My usual custom was to go and sit down amongst them and talk about whatever came uppermost, and gradually lead their minds to religious matters. I found that I thus instructed myself in their language