male or female. A young man not so provided for must steal a 

 lubra, either from his own tribe or from another. If from a 

 strange tribe, he will be persecuted by her friends for a time, and 

 if caught, he will have to fight for his lady with some man chosen 

 from the offended tribe, or he will have to run a gauntlet of 

 spears. I know a case where a man so captured refused to light 

 a single adversary. He told the friends of the stolen w^oman — 

 the third or fourth of his wives — that if they wanted him to fight, 

 they must bring out against him the two best men they had. 

 They did so. It was a hand-to-hand fight with their great heavy 

 lance-headed clubs. But so great was the strength, reach of arm, 

 and skill of this man, that he very soon disarmed and nearly 

 killed his two opponents. This was the notorious " long-legged 

 Charlie,'" who turned Queen's evidence at the time of the great 

 Daly River murder case. 



If the young man steal his wife from his own tribe there will 

 also mostly be a row, always, of course, should he take the wife 

 of another man. In this case the injured husband troubles him- 

 self very little. Sooner or later the fugitives must return. Then 

 he punishes them. They must submit, and he must have blood 

 from both. He does not, as a rule, spear them in the usual 

 meaning of the term, but prods them with a spear more or less 

 severely as his wrongs have been greater or less. This, if he 

 intends to spare the woman's life. She then returns to her 

 lawful allegiance, and there is no more about it. 



If you ask a young man how he came to be so silly as to 

 expose himself to this certain vengeance, he will answer : '^ Lubra 

 been kill'm me eye," which, translated, means that he was be- 

 witched by the woman's eye. Whenever — and this often happens 

 — the young man believes that a woman's evil eye overcomes his 

 liberty, he resents the insult even should he yield to the tempter. 



Pviding once through the l^ush with a lad of about seventeen, he 

 pointed out a hill which he had good cause to remember. It was 

 about 20 miles from his home, and so far had he once escaped 

 with the wife of a fellow-tribesman. He laughed heartily as he 

 told me the story, how the woman was always pestering him to 

 run off with her, how he told her he did not want her, that he 

 was only a boy, that her husband would kill him, and how, over- 

 come at last by her importunity, he said, "All right, you and me 

 run aw^ay I " They had reached the hill in question. It was 

 raining. Tliey were seated on a stone, holding a sheet of bark 

 over their heads. Suddenly the husband of the runaway stood 

 before them. His spear was poised, and he looked murder, " If 

 you were not of my own tribe, I would kill you now," he said. 

 "Kill me," said the young fellow; "I have stolen your wife." 

 " No, I will not : you are only a l)oy ! " " Very well, beat me,' 



