in particular of the Port Lincoln District. 191 



nies, is not improbable^ and the following circumstance gives 

 a tint of truth to this belief. Two young blacks of the Mur- 

 rumbidgee tribe, who left Mr. Eyre in the middle of his 

 journey from Adelaide to King George's Sound, after mur- 

 dering his overseer, were, in their turn, Avhile proceeding 

 homewards, killed by a western tribe, in the belief that they 

 were the redoubted Punkabidnies. The worst kind of super- 

 stition, and which in proportion causes as much mischief 

 among the native tribes as the belief in witchcraft formerly 

 did in Europe, is the notion that any one, out of hatred or 

 other motives, can kill any person inimical to him diu'ing his 

 sleep, and that this is done by boring the enemy with the 

 fingers in the side in a peculiar way. The consequences of 

 this proceeding are said to be gradual loss of health, and 

 finally death. The guilty wretch is generally discovered by 

 the evidence of the dying person. The aborigines have habi- 

 tuated themselves to the belief that in all cases of death 

 which cannot be accounted for, as proceeding from old age, 

 wounds, and other palpable causes, knavish and malicious 

 means have been resorted to. They are not content even 

 when the cause of death is sufficiently clear, but seek to find 

 a hidden cause, as the following event relative to the point 

 will show. A woman, Avliile 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 Avas asserted that it was not 

 au accident, but that the deceased had pointed out a certain 

 aborigine as her murderer. Upon this evidence, Avhich was 

 heightened by the circumstance that no blood floAved from 

 the wound, the woman's husband and his friends challenged 

 the accused and his friends to combat. Peace, however, in 

 tlie meantime was made, and upon the offensive side it was 

 acknowledged that the woman was in error Avith regard to 

 the guilty person. But still not satisfied that the snake bite 

 should have been the cause of the death, another individual 

 Avas suddenly discovered, and accused of being the author of 

 the mishap. Thereupon Avar was declared upon him and his 

 party, but at last the affair was borne with and forgotten. 

 From this and other similar eases, it seems to stand forth 

 clearly as much revenge as superstition is at tlie bottom of 

 these infamous accusations. Considering that the aborigines 

 are unacquainted Avith Ilim in whose hands arc life and death, 

 that they are little given to reflection, ready to sacrifice their 

 friends in obedience to a blind fate, capable, however, of deep 



