548 KAJDITCHA SHOES OF CENTRAL AUSTRALIA, 



he applies the firestick to the wound, taking care not to scorch 

 the flesh. By this means he causes the wound to rapidly heal up 

 outwardly, and no trace of any external wound can then be found. 

 Having accomplished his object, he travels back in a circuitous 

 way, and killing another euro himself, he takes it to his own tribe. 

 The opposite tribe seeing that their warrior does not return, send 

 out in search, when several of the tribe are invited over the 

 boundary to look for him. They soon track him and find his 

 body with the euro he had killed, but as no wound can be seen, 

 nor can they find any evidence of his death, they conclude that 

 Kooditcha has seized him, and as Kooditcha appears to be in the 

 locality and may seize others of their tribe, they hasten away with 

 all despatch. By stratagem, aided by superstition, the weaker 

 tribes secure their ends without losing any of their number, and 

 a war is averted." 



Mr. East next informs me that he cannot agree with Mr. 

 Oldfield that the word Kilditcha means devil. He says : — " The 

 name is foreign, as I believe, and I am of opinion that both the 

 article and its use is an importation from the Queensland Blacks." 

 My informant likewise reminds me that Mounted-Constable W. 

 H. Wilshire, in his interesting pamphlet "The Aborigines of 

 Central Australia,"* speaks of the devil, or the Aboriginal con- 

 ception answering to his Satanic Majesty, as Aruinya. In his 

 own interesting accountf of the Central Tribes, Mr. East also 

 makes use of this term, " Their religious ideas are very primitive, 

 believing only in an evil spirit or Arumya." In that most 

 extraordinary of tribes, the Dieyerie, the word for devil, or evil 

 spirit, is Kootchie,X whilst in the MacDonnell Ranges the term 

 Eringa is used. Mr. East concludes that Mr. Oldfield has erred 

 in translating the word Kudltcha into devil, from its apparent 

 resemblance to the term employed in the well-known Dieyerie 

 dialect. 



* P. 10 (16ino. Adelaide, 1888). 



t The Aborigines of South and Central Australia, p. 9 (16mo. Adelaide, 

 1889). 



X Police-Trooper S. Gason— The Manners and Customs of the Dieyerie 

 Tribe of Australian Aborigines. WoocVs Native Tr/hen of S. Australia, 

 1879, pp. 284 and 299. 



