Page:Tom Petrie's reminiscences of early Queensland.djvu/76

 48 TOM PETRIE'S REMINISCENCES The aborigines never laid up with their wounds, though one wonders at it. Father has seen in a fight the skin of the head cut right through to the skull with a waddy. These deep cuts on the head were treated in the same way as those on the body — just charcoal put in them, and the wounds seemed to recover in a few weeks' time. It would without doubt kill a white man to be treated in the same way. This fighting was kept up on the whole for about five hours in the fore part of the day. After these champions had had their "go," other fighting men would follow, and so on. When all was ended, everybody would retire to camp, the "kippas" who were thus being initiated into the art of warfare, being escorted to their quarters by a dozen men. The rest of the day was employed in hunting for food, and at night the boys would play with the "wobbalkan" and watch the men dance, etc. This was not for one day only, but for about a week the fight went on, at the end of which time the "kippas" were supposed to be fighting men, able to fight their own battles. All through, though, they were kept away from their mothers, and for three months or so after this they did not return to the women's camp, but would hunt and camp with the elder men, keeping more or less to their dress meanwhile.

After the great fight was over the "kippas" would have their noses pierced, and their bodies ornamented with scars, the latter being done in different ways, according to the tribe to which they belonged. The natives here did not tattoo, but marked their bodies. The nose-piercing and body-marking was generally done in dull, damp weather, if possible, the idea being that it would not hurt so much then. And when all was over, the visiting tribes would depart to journey homewards, taking each with them their own "kippas," or young men, the latter travelling apart from the others.

The greater ceremony of kippa-making was carried out in the following fashion, and what is known as the "bora" ceremony of other tribes is not unlike it. First a circle — called "bul" by the Brisbane blacks, and "tur" by the Bribie Island tribe — was formed in the ground, very like a