BY RICHD. HELMS. 
393 
woman of mature age should have clandestine connection with a 
much younger man than herself, she was sometimes killed. 
Whenever adultery was discovered, the punishment was in most 
cases death. The woman's friends as a rule attacked the offending 
man, and the man's friends killed the woman. Although this 
was the generally adopted custom and law, it was often the cause 
of a general intertribal fight and the origin of a prolonged family 
feud. 
A man who received a girl in promise endeavoured to obtain a 
lock of her hair, which he would keep, and if she refused him 
afterwards he would sometimes wrap an eagle-hawk's feather in 
the hair and throw the tuft in some waterhole. As the hair 
decomposed, the woman would sicken and ultimately die. 
Up to about the fourth year a child got almost anything it 
liked to eat, but at a later age it was forbidden certain things. 
They were made to believe that if anyone ate of forbidden food 
he or she would sooner or later be killed by lightning. This 
superstition was so firmly ingrafted into them that some would 
endure severe starvation rather than partake of forbidden 
food. From some individuals the restriction of eating certain 
animals was removed earlier than from others, but it seems that 
the flesh of an emu was never allowed to be eaten till some time 
after the arrival at the age of manhood. When this time had 
arrived, the man who was for the first time to eat of this specially 
reserved dish would sit down between two fires and have the emu 
placed in front of him. He could then eat as much as he liked, 
but was not allowed to go to sleep when he was satisfied, and was 
forcibly kept awake the whole night whenever he became drowsy. 
They cooked their food either on the fire, or when they had a 
great deal of it and were not in a hurry, in a kind of oven in the 
ground. For this purpose they dug a suitable hole and filled the 
bottom of it with stones over which a fire was lighted. As soon as 
the stones had been well heated, the fire and ashes were removed 
and the game was placed upon the stones. This was covered with 
bark and green bushes over which the hot ashes were heaped, and 
the whole left undisturbed till the meat was cooked. 
