HUNTING AND PISHING EACES 153 



being pierced by many wounds, or from having his bones broken, 

 or his strength exhausted from extreme old age, his countrymen 

 all deny that wounds or weakness occasioned his death, and 

 anxiously try to discover by which of the jugglers and for what 

 reason he was killed.' ^ Among different races the holding of this 

 belief has different results. With regard to Australia, Messrs. 

 Spencer and Gillen in the passage quoted above continue as 

 follows : ' sooner or later that man or woman will be attacked. 

 In the normal condition of the tribe every death meant the killing 

 of another individual ' — the guilty person being indicated by 

 a medicine man.^ The avenging party is at times merely directed 

 by the medicine man to proceed in a certain direction and after 

 a march, it may be of a considerable distance, discovers another 

 local group which it entirely wipes out.^ At other times an 

 individual near by is indicated and at once dispatched. It is 

 obvious that if such results commonly followed upon the death of 

 every tribesman the population would rapidly diminish, and, as 

 a matter of fact, serious as the consequences of this belief are, 

 there are many indications that blood revenge is not carried out 

 with the extreme rigour that the above passage would seem to 

 indicate. Probably most deaths go unavenged,* yet in spite of 

 this blood revenge must be accounted as a factor of importance in 

 Australia,^ especially as it affects women as well as men.^ 



Among the races belonging to the second group we shall meet 

 with a somewhat similar state of affairs. But, widespread as this 

 belief is, it does not appear to provoke bloodshed among the other 

 races belonging to this group on any large scale. We hear of feuds 

 among the Eskimos and the punishment of witchcraft by death. 

 Murder is also reported as occurring among the Eskimos. ' It is 



belief is carried, the following story may be quoted. ' A woman, while clearing 

 out a well, was bitten in the thumb by a black snake. It began to swell imme- 

 diately, and in the short space of twenty-four hours the woman was a corpse. 

 Still it was asserted that it was not an accident, but that the deceased had pointed 

 out a certain aboriginee as her murderer' (Wilhelmi, loc. cit., p. 191). In this 

 case no killing actually followed, though it nearly did so. 



1 Dobrizhoffer, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 84. - Spencer and Gillen, Native 



Tribes, vol. ii, p. 45. ^ Curr, Australian Race, vol. i, p. 86. 



* Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes, p. 477. Wheeler (loc. cit., p. 149) says that 

 ' warfare only arises as a result of a blood feud, due to the killing of a member 

 of one local group by a member of another local group, nearly always by magical 

 means. But even this ground of offence is most generally settled by one of the 

 methods of regular procedure above described.' Since, as we have seen, the 

 regular procedure seldom ends in the shedding of blood, many deaths thus pass 

 unavenged. 



^ Thomas, Natives of Av^tralia, p. 47 ; Eyre, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 379. ' Curr, 



Recollections, p. 317. 



