68 AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



AVENGING OF DEATH. 



A DYING person, who believes that sorcery and incantations are the cause of his 

 illness, intimates to his friends the number of persons in the suspected tribe whom 

 they are to kill. Sometimes the individual who is believed to be the cause of his 

 illness is named hy the dying person. 



When the offending tribe is not otherwise revealed, the question is decided, 

 after the body has been put up into the tree, by watching the course taken by 

 the fii-st maggot which drops from the body and crawls over the clean-swept 

 ground underneath. If the body has been buried, the surface of the grave is 

 swept and smoothed carefully ; then the first ant which crosses it indicates the 

 direction of the tribe which caused the death of the deceased. If possible, one of 

 the members of that tribe must be killed. 



A consultation takes place, and when an individual is fixed upon as the cause 

 of the death, he receives warning that his life will be taken. If he escapes for 

 two moons, he is free. Immediately after the warning, a small party of the 

 male friends and relatives of the deceased prepare themselves by eating 

 sparingly for two or three days, and getting together, each for himself, a supply 

 of cooked food. When ready to start, they paint and disguise themselves, that 

 they may not be recognized by the friends of the person whom they intend to kill. 

 They proceed, well armed, by night to the vicinity of the residence occupied by 

 their intended victim. It is difficult to surpi-ise a camp, owing to the watch- 

 fulness and ferocity of the dogs belonging to it. The attacking party, therefore, 

 form a wide circle, and gradually close round the wuurn, guiding each other by 

 uttering cries in imitation of nocturnal animals. At the dawn of day, which is 

 the time of the deepest sleep with the aborigines, and when it is sufficiently light 

 to distinguish the person they wish to kill, they rush on their victim, drag him 

 out of his bed, and spear him without the slightest resistance from himself or his 

 friends, who, paralyzed with terror, lie perfectly still. After the departure of 

 the attacking party, the friends cut up the body and burn it. No reason is given 

 for this custom. 



