Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/341

Rh infanticide as crime. Hardly an old woman, if questioned, but will admit of having disposed in this manner of from two to four of her offspring.

Their whole life is spent in bartering; they rarely retain any article for long. The articles received by them in exchange one day are bartered away the next, whether at a profit or loss. Should any one of them, more shrewd than another, profit on one occasion by this traffic, he is sure immediately after to sacrifice his advantage, and the majority of their quarrels are caused by bartering or refusing to barter.

Their food is principally vegetable, animals being very scarce, if we except rats and their species, and snakes and other reptiles, of which there is an imlimited number. There are no kangaroo, and very few emu, the latter of which is their favourite food; and occasionally, in very hot weather, they secure one by running it down. In a dry season they mainly subsist on ardoo, but in a good season, with plenty of rain, they have an ample supply of seeds, which they grind or pound, make into small loaves, and bake in the ashes. They gather, also, then plenty of plants, herbs, and roots, a description of which, with their native names, appears in another place.

Their dogs, of which every camp has from six to twenty, are generally a mangy lot, but the natives are very fond of them, and take as much care of them as if they were human. If a white man wants to offend a native let him beat his dog. I have seen women crying over a dog, when bitten by snakes, as if over their own children. The Dieyerie would as soon think of killing themselves as their dogs, which are of great service to them—assisting them to find snakes, rats, &c

Animal food being very scanty, the natives subsist chiefly on vegetable matter, so that eating the flesh of any animal they may procure, the dog, notwithstanding its services and their affection for it, fares very badly, receiving nothing but the bones. Hence the dog is always in very low condition, and consequently peculiarly subject to the diseases that affect the canine race.