Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/26

 xvi INTRODUCTION. not exist now amongst the tribes which frequently have intercourse with white people, may be believed; but since the practice is, or at any rate was, common (whether arising from want or due to vengeance) to all the coast tribes, and to most of those which have been met in the interior, there seems nothing to exclude the South Australian natives from the suspicion of a custom which, except as above mentioned, has been found to be universal amongst them. Captain Barker, who was lost at the Murray mouth, is believed to have been eaten by the natives.* With facts such as these on record, two causes of the extinction of the races are clearly established. The Europeans have had no hand in this; indeed, it is to their influence alone that these customs may be said to have been abandoned. The mortality from diseases, both prior to and subsequent to the settlement of the country, has done much to thin them out. Their notions of medicine, as amongst all savages, were of the most absurd nature. Amongst the Adelaide tribe the sorcerers were the physicians. All internal pains were supposed to arise from witchcraft, and were variously treated. Sometimes the blood was sucked out from the part affected, and sometimes a bone was supposed to be extracted from it by suction. On other occasions the disease was taken away in an invisible form, and either burnt or thrown into water. In other diseases the sufferer was stretched on the ground and pressed on the diseased part by the hands or feet of the operator, and cold water then sprinkled over it and green leaves applied.† The natives are well acquainted with the use of bandages in cases of snake-bite. Bleeding is frequently resorted to to relieve headache. The operation is performed by opening a vein in the arm with a piece of sharp rock crystal or shell, in the same way London: Sampson, Low, and Marston, 1865) says on this subject, "He had been speared by two natives and took to the water to avoid them. Afterwards the murderers said they threw the body into the sea, but no one who knows the horrible habits of these natives will believe that part of the story. " (Vol. I., pp. 364-5. ) † Pro remedio, in pluribus morbis urina feminae externe applicata, in eximia estimatione habetur.
 * The Rev, J. E. Tenison Woods (Discovery and Exploration of Australia.