54 
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 
tract the front tooth, lacerate their bodies, to raise the 
flesh, cicatrices being their chief ornament ; procure food by 
the same means, paint in the same manner, and use the 
same weapons, as far as the productions of the country will 
allow them. But as the grass-tree is not found westward 
of the mountains, they make a light spear of a reed, similar 
to that of which the natives of the southern islands form their 
arrows. These they use for distant combat, and not only 
carry in numbers, but throw with the boomerang to a great 
distance and with unerring precision, making them to all 
intents and purposes as efficient as the bow and arrow. 
They have a ponderous spear for close fight, and others of 
different sizes for the chase. With regard to their laws, I 
believe they are universally the same all over the known 
parts of New South Wales. The old men have alone the 
privilege of eating the emu ; and so submissive are the 
young men to this regulation, that if, from absolute hunger 
or under other pressing circumstances, one of them breaks 
through it, either during a hunting excursion, or whilst 
absent from his tribe, he returns under a feeling of conscious 
guilt, and by his manner betrays his guilt, sitting apart 
from the men, and confessing his misdemeanour to the 
chief at the first interrogation, upon which he is obliged to 
undergo a slight punishment. This evidently is a law of 
policy and necessity, for if the emus were allowed to be in- 
discriminately slaughtered, they would soon become extinct. 
Civilised nations may learn a wholesome lesson even from 
savages, as in this instance of their forbearance. For 
