Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/88

 26 MILLIN. haps the other man will say that he has one belonging to the person who asks him the question, and in that case they will make an exchange, and each destroy the ngadhungi. If, however, this is not the case, the man will endeavour to make a bargain with the person who has the ngadhungi, and obtain it from him by purchase. Sometimes he will give money, or spears, or nets, as the price of it. "All that a man hath will he give for his life." When he has obtained it he destroys it immediately. I believe that there are many of these Narrinyeri who make it their business to look out for anything in the shape of ngadhungi, in order to sell it in the manner above mentioned. Of course, a great deal of imposture is practised by such parties. It is not necessary that I should specify the particular points of resemblance between ngadhungi and the nahak of the Tannese. I trust that from the description which I have given they will be sufficiently apparent. A correspondent in the far north of this colony wrote to me in 1862 as follows: "The Pando and Blanchewater blacks have a peculiar superstition. They take the bone of some defunct friend, and it is chewed by two or three of the old men; they then make little graves in the hot ashes, and put in the bone, calling it by the name of some enemy. They believe that when the bone is consumed their enemy will die." SECTION II. MILLIN. This is another kind of sorcery practised amongst the Narrinyeri. When a man intends to set out on an expedition for the purpose of taking his revenge, by means of millin, against any one whom he dislikes, he marks his face and body all over with white streaks for the purpose of disguising himself. The concealment obtained by this means is almost complete: but it is also used for other purposes besides the above. He then takes his plongge, which is a stout club with a large conical-shaped knob, and puts it in his basket with a few more clubs (native