AVENGING OF DEATH. 69 



When the person who has been named by the deceased, and who has been 

 warned of his intended fate, seeks safety by keeping away from his tribe, his 

 enemies searcli for him for two moons ; and, as he must hunt for food, he is 

 sometimes discovered. When his enemies see him, they all keep out of sight 

 except one man, who approaches him in a friendly way, and, in course of 

 conversation, directs his attention to something up a tree, or in the distance. 

 Being off his guard, he is suddenly knocked down. The others, who have been 

 watching, immediately rush on their victim, catch him by the throat, throw him 

 on his face, and hold him down, while one cuts open his back with a sharp 

 flint knife, and pulls out the kidney fat, afterwards stufiing the hole with a 

 tuft of grass. A piece of the fat is rolled up in grass and thrown over the 

 shoulder of the operator, who then seats the man against a tree with a 

 burning stick in his hand, and, retiring backwards with his eyes fixed on him, 

 picks up the fat, which he wraps in opossum skin and carries away. This 

 kidney fat is afterwards presented to his chief, who fixes it on his spear- 

 thrower, as a charm to ensure hLs spear going straight and fatally. After a while 

 the wounded man walks home, with the grass still in the wound, and, as his case 

 is hopeless, no effort is made to remove it, and nothing is done for him. He 

 walks about for a day or two, and eats his food as if nothing had happened, but 

 soon dies. 



Sometimes the enemy is killed by strangling. He is watched by three 

 or four men, who are provided with a tough rope, made of the inner bark 

 of the stringybark tree. A running noose is made on the rope ; they throw 

 the noose over his head, and pull — one man at each end of the rope — till he 

 is choked. 



Intending murderers always disguise themselves with coloured clay ; their 

 victim cannot, therefore, easily recognize them. But as, if he do not die 

 immediately, he is expected to name his murderers, he often fixes on the wrong 

 persons. When these are killed in retaliation, a feud is begun ; and thus there is 

 kept up a constant destruction of life. If the attack upon the supposed spell- 

 thrower should take place near a camp, and he should be killed, his murderer is 

 at once chased by every able-bodied man present, and, if caught, is put to death 

 on the spot. Every pursuer thrusts four spears into his body, and leaves them 

 there. His friends, who have been watching the result at a distance, wait till the 

 pursuers go away, and then burn the body and all the spears which were thrust 

 into it, and which are sometimes so numerous as to be likened to ' spines in a 



