Aborigines of Australia. 237 



adopted for the discovery of the supposed criminal, is to watch the 

 course taken by any insect near the body, and to follow their prey 

 in that particular direction.* 



Count Strzelecki confirms this statement, in an interesting account 

 he gives of his rencontre on one occasion with a tribe of aborigines 

 in Gipps Land. The tribe was seen encamped around a pond ; and 

 as the traveller had been several days without water, he would have 

 instantly rushed forward to quench his burning thirst. But his guide 

 earnestly prevented him, and they sat down near the encampment. 

 After an interval of a quarter of an hour, a piece of burning wood 

 was thrown to them, with which they lighted their fire, and proceeded 

 to cook an opposum they had in store. The guide then began gnaw- 

 ing the stick, occasionally stirring the fire, at times casting his looks 

 sideways. Presently a calabash of water was brought them. After 

 appeasing hunger and thirst, the traveller was about to close his 

 weary eyes, when an old man came out from the camp. The guide 

 met him half way, and a parley ensued as to the object of the Count's 

 wandering. The old man having returned with the answer, a thril- 

 ling and piercing voice was next heard relating the subject to the 

 tribe. Silence ensued for a few moments, after which the travellers 

 were ordered to return whence they came. There was no appeal. 



Connected with these wary and distrustful feelings of the abori- 

 gines is, perhaps, to be considered the strong repugnance they mani- 

 fest to revisiting a spot where one of their tribe has happened to die. 

 At the German mission, after many abortive attempts, several natives 

 were at length induced to clear some ground and" erect slab huts for 

 their own residence. A few weeks afterwards, however, a death oc- 

 curred amongst the group, which caused the huts to be deserted, nor 

 could any entreaty, or the inclemency of the weather, tempt them to 

 return. 



The mode of disposing of the dead varies according to the usage 







* Smythe, 2. Similar information was given to the writer several years ago, 

 regarding the natives of the Colac district. The occurrence of a death, even 

 though from accident or natural causes, is attributed to some party of a neigh- 

 bouring tribe, who has secretly abstracted the kidney fat of his supposed victim, 

 this being a favourite morsel, among the blacks, and frequently plucked out and 

 devoured from the living bodies of their enemies. Their manner of proceeding 

 is to bury the body in the ground, carefully smoothing the surface, so that it may- 

 exhibit the dii'ection taken by any animal or living creature over the grave. 

 The tribe immediately starts off in the direction first indicated, and the first 

 strange native who is met with becomes the victim. It is not perhaps to be 

 wondered at, that, under the influence of superstition, which exerts such power- 

 ful and inexplicable effects even upon civilised man, the fact of the entire out- 

 ward aspect of the body of the comrade thus avenged, and the actual presence 

 of the untouched fat itself, should not in any wise affect the case. The Colac 

 tribes are now much reduced in number ; and the thickly planted pastoral set- 

 tlements of that romantic and beautiful country, have probably had the effect 

 of blunting the edge of their zest for these senseless barbarities. 



VOL. LIU. NO. CVI. — OCTOBER 1852. R 



