Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/159

 CAPTAIN JACK. 93 named Tuparinyeri. One Sunday morning the lad who rang the handbell for service, after ringing a short time, ran down to the house and hid himself behind the door. Directly after Tuparinyeri came rushing in with her head and face streaming with blood from some gashes on her head. I inquired what was the matter, and found that the boy in ringing the bell had unintentionally struck it against the forehead of Captain Jack’s baby boy, inflicting a slight cut. The father coming up at the moment and seeing the blood flew into a rage. The bellringer fled, and so Captain Jack rushed into the wurley to take vengeance on his wife for not taking care of the child, and not finding her, he seized a kanake, and battered his sister about the head in his wild fury until it streamed with blood. I dressed the wounds, and began worship in a rather disturbed state of mind. Next day, Captain Jack came down to try to make it up. I told him I would have nothing to do with him; he might go. He begged me not to be angry. I replied that I would have nothing to say with him unless he asked his sister’s forgiveness. This was contrary to all native ideas! he was very un-willing to do so. He proposed that she should stick a spear into his arm, so that his blood might atone for hers; but to ask forgiveness of a woman was too humiliating. However, I insisted upon that and, nothing else, and at last he yielded and. did as I wished. Poor Tuparinyeri was afterwards given away through the influence of another brother to an old man who already had two wives, and forced to go with him. She took it to heart and pined away in the miserable life which she led. A young wife in such a case becomes the slave of the older wives. Some time after, she returned to me wasted and ill from bad treatment. We took her into the house and nursed her until she was well. We also instructed her in the truths of the gospel, and she received them with great eagerness. Truly they are the comfort and hope of the wretched in all countries. As soon as ever Tuparinyeri’s health returned she was compelled to go again with the barbarous people to whom she had been given. Very