VIII NATIVE HABITS 115 
rapidity, was horribly gashed and cut about, and I was 
so horrified at the sight that my legs couldn’t carry me 
fast enough from the ghastly scene. They show their 
scars with warrior-like pride. Their battles are mere 
questions of strength, and the weaker side leave, and 
thus intimate that they are beaten. Women never join 
in the battles, though they will sometimes grow so 
excited in looking on that they will seize their yam 
sticks (made for digging up roots) and with wild shrieks 
and gesticulations will fall on each other, hacking and 
hitting in the most barbarous way, finally scratching 
and tearing at each other’s hair. They seldom take part 
in the corroboree, but sitting on their crossed legs in 
rows they form an orchestra, “ most melancholy ” if not 
“ most musical.” Their great performances take place 
during the full moon. 
It is very hard to find out what their religion is, and 
they are generally reticent about it. Thunderstorms 
are caused, in their belief, by departed spirits ; the last 
man who has died is supposed to influence the elements, 
and the chief of the tribe will sometimes in a most 
vehement way expostulate with the unseen spirit. 
They kill many of their female children as being 
inferior to the male, especially if they are cross, when 
they knock them on the head with their nullahs. 
“ Piccaninny no good, too much cry,” they will tell you. 
They fasten their dead babies (when they don’t eat 
them) between tightly -bandaged pieces of bark with 
banana leaves. One that had been used as a pillow, 
and which I made a sketch of, nearly drove me out of 
the camp. The mother was still in mourning, and had 
her forehead and body plastered over with white clay. 
Her husband, who was a fine -looking man, had two 
bullets in his body, which, however, did not seem to in- 
convenience him. They generally, in their love-making, 
