Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/211

 CURIOUS SAYINGS. 137 One morning a man called Kilkildaritpiri came to me with his upper lip almost bitten off. There had been a fight the night before, and this fellow had attacked Captain Jack when he was unarmed, and so Jack seized him and in a rage bit him as I have described. I dressed the wound as well as I could. Next morning I was going to the camp, when I met Captain Jack. I began talking to him about hurting Kilkildaritpiri. He replied, "Taplin, don’t you talk; I have just had four blows with a waddy on my head for it." The tribe had assembled and sentenced him to this punishment, and he had yielded, although a man whom none would have liked to have attacked when he had weapons in his hand; but he felt it right to submit to the law. By native law certain kinds of food were prohibited to the young men and boys. Twenty kinds of native game were forbidden to the narumbarthat is, those undergoing initiation to manhoodand thirteen kinds to the boys. These prohibitions were strictly observed. Certain penalties were said to follow disobedience. If the boys ate wallaby they would turn grey; if they ate the fish called tyiri they would have sore legs; if they cooked food with palyi or panpandi wood, all the fish would forsake the shore. Boys were also very careful not to allow their hair to be cut or combed after they were about twelve years of age until they were made narumbar or young men. Indeed, so far from the natives being lawless, they had too many laws, and their whole lives were regulated by them. There are some curious sayings amongst the natives, some of them grotesque and absurd. For instance, the children were told that if a boy should tickle a dog until he made him laugh, the dog would turn into a boy, and the boy into a panpandi (native cherry) tree. Again, there is a large green fly called tenkendeli, and it is supposed that if they kill this fly, and do not at the same time cry out "tenkendeli," they will not be able to swim any more. It is also supposed that if any one spits on certain rocky islands in Lake Albert he will certainly turn grey. I would not write these absurdities, but I think that it may perhaps be interesting to compare them, with similar sayings in other tribes.