A L "-V TRALASIA ILL US TR. I 77- Z). 



of almost continual hostility. The members of each community call themselves " Men," 

 while thev designate those of other communities by terms of contempt, corresponding to 

 the ' Greek Bar Iniroi. They make raids upon them for the purpose of killing their 

 men and stealing their women ; and they suffer from like raids by the enemy in return. 

 In these wars with alien enemies no notice is given, and no mercy is shown to males, 

 excepting that boys are sometimes, though rarely, spared by the victors, and adopted 

 into their community. There is no need to declare war against the alien enemies. 

 Their very existence is a continual offence, and they are to be blotted out of existence 

 whenever occasion serves. There is also a considerable amount of fighting within the 

 community, and there are many continued blood feuds. One horde steals women from 

 another horde, or gives other cause of offence, such as a supposed causing of death by 

 witchcraft, and these quarrels may be settled by a pitched battle between the hordes or 

 between the " totems," according to mutual agreement. There is, however, a marked 

 difference between these set fights and the raids upon the alien enemies. Due notice 

 is given. The two parties meet in open field ; and when they have rated one another 

 after the fashion of Homer's heroes, the battle is joined. Sometimes even the women 

 come into the fight, and not infrequently lose their lives in the fray. Many of the 

 tribes are cannibals, eating at least a portion of the slain. But as a general rule, the) 

 do not eat those of their own community who fall in the pre-arranged battles of the 

 hordes. This crowning insult is generally reserved for the alien enemy. This kind of 

 cannibalism, however, must be distinguished from that practised by some of the tribes, 

 who eat their deceased relatives, especially the omentum fat, as a touching funeral 

 ceremony to prevent excessive grief. Captive women, whether taken from the aliens or 

 from a horde within the community, cannot be the property of their captors unless they 

 belong to one of the divisions with which their captors may legally intermarry. 



The blackfelldw's familiarity with bush-life, and his wonderful mastery of the bush- 

 man's art in every particular, have made his services useful to Europeans in several 

 capacities. The habits of the black races of Australia are against any long-continued 

 exertion in any direction, but where the work required of the black happens to bring 

 his peculiar gifts into play his usefulness is unquestionable. He distinguishes himself chiefly 

 as a " tracker " of persons or cattle who may happen to be lost in the bush. In tracing 

 criminals, and finding lost travellers and children, the black tracker has often evinced a 

 marvellous instinct, which has taken the police, or the rescue party, direct to the spot 

 required, when every other method had proved itself at fault. Traces are apparent to 

 the eye of the tracker when to even the experienced station-hand no track or indication 

 whatever is discernible ; and a mounted black will often follow the trail at a rapid trot 

 long after it has been lost by skilled bush-men of the search party. For this reason 

 the black tracker is a necessary member of the police force of the colonies, though his 

 services are not so often required now as they were in former years. 



The chief articles of manufacture are the weapons of war, many of which are cut 

 of hard, close-grained wood, and the only tools available to fashion them, before the 

 introduction of iron by the white settlers, were the stone hatchet and the Hint, or shell, 

 knife and scraper. Weapons and other articles, such as bowls, and fish-hooks made of 

 bone or hard-wood, are the work of the men ; but the women also make nets, opossum 



