Alfred William Howitt

“ The women and children are always told that at the secret parts of the Jeraeil, Tundun himself comes down to "make the boys into men." The hideous sounds which the uninitiated may chance to hear from a distance they are told is Tundun's voice, and they are warned not to leave their camp while he is about, lest he should kill them with his spears. ”

“ But if we must use the word Chief to imply a person having power to direct the people of his class or tribe, and that his directions or orders are obeyed by them, then I say that the Pinnaru, Gweraeil-kurnai, the Ngurungaeta, and the Gommera are Chiefs. Although when compared with those of well-known tribes in other parts of the world, their power is limited, yet it is an actual power to command, coupled with a certain measure of ability to compel obedience. ”

“ Siebert was so good as to draw up for me a number of tables of descents, in three or four levels of a generation, of actual occurrence in the Dieri tribe, so that the facts brought out extended back to the time when they were in complete savagery. A man could therefore only obtain a wife from one half of the tribe, that is from one class; but this does not even mean so much as it appears to do, because, as I shall show later on, there are other restrictions arising out of the classificatory system of relationships which still further restrain the scope of marriage. ”

“ Arriving at their home, they strangled the Dara-ulu, who were at once restored to life by the old Mura-mura Darana, to be again strangled by the unanimous decision of the people. Their bodies were then rolled up, and it was decided that the first child born should be the guardian of the Dara.
The Dieri show two heart-shaped stones, which are carefully wrapped up in feathers and fat, as the Dara-ulu, to scratch which would, they say, cause the whole people to suffer perpetual hunger, and never to be satisfied, however much they might eat. ”

“ I have adopted the term "medicine-men" as a convenient and comprehensive term for those men who are usually spoken of in Australia as "Blackfellow doctors"—men who in the native tribes profess to have supernatural powers. The term "doctor" is not strictly correct, if by it is meant only a person who uses some means of curing disease. The powers which these men claim are not merely those of healing, or causing disease, but also such as may be spoken of as magical practices relating to, or in some manner affecting, the well-being of their friends and enemies. ”

“ I have shown in the chapters on marriages and on the initiation ceremonies that there are stringent laws which regulate the intercourse of the sexes, which relate to the secret ceremonies of the tribe, which restrict the choice of food, and so on; and these laws or customs are enforced by severe penalties, even in some cases by death itself.
It is quite true that many such laws or customs are obeyed without the dread of physical punishment being inflicted for their breach, by any tribal authority, individual or collective. ”

“ No one is believed by the tribes at the Herbert River to die from any cause but the magic of some one of a neighbouring tribe. A shallow grave is dug with pointed sticks close to water, and the father or brother of the deceased, if a man, or the husband if a woman, beat the body with a Mera or club, often so violently as to break the bones. ”

“ As I have said before, the social unit is not the individual, but the group; and the former merely takes the relationships of his group, which arc of group to group. The relationship terms differ very much in their meaning from those we use, and moreover the natives distinguish between some which we confuse under one collective term, and those native terms are distinguished from each other, by the persons whom they represent, being respectively in one or the other of the two moieties of the tribe. For instance, our term "uncle" includes "father's brother" and "mother's brother." ”

“ Thus they came to the Beltana country, at a time when a youth was about to be made into a man. When the men were going to burn him with fire, the Yuri-ulu went into the earth, the one on his right and the other on his left, waiting for the moment when they could help him. When a man approached with a red-hot fire-stick to perform the operation, the two Yuri-ulu rose out of the earth, and instantly cutting off the foreskin with their Tula, sank back into the ground invisibly. The men who were present were astonished at the fresh wound, and saw that the boy had been circumcised. ”

“ The division of the community into two intermarrying moieties, the "class divisions," is the simplest form of the social organisation in the native tribes.
This fundamental law of communal division underlies and runs through all the more developed systems of four or eight sub-classes, and even shows traces of its former existence in tribes in which the class system has become decadent, and the local organisation has taken place and assumed control of marriage.
The division of the tribal community into two classes is the foundation on which the whole structure of society is built. ”

“ I may roughly define "doctors" as men who profess to extract from the human body foreign substances which, according to aboriginal belief, have been placed in them by the evil magic of other medicine-men, or by supernatural beings, such as Brewin of the Kurnai, or the Ngarrang of the Wurunjerri. Ngarrang is described as being like a man with a big beard and hairy arms and hands, who lived in the large swellings which are to be seen at the butts of some of the gum-trees, such as the Red Gum, which grows on the river flats, in the Wurunjerri country. ”

“ I have shown in this chapter how universal the exchange of a sister for a wife is in Australian tribes, and each woman is, so to say, the "bride-price of the other."
In tribes with descent in the female line, such as the Dieri, it is practically the group, consisting of the own mother, and the own and tribal brothers of the mother, and of the daughter, which betroths the girl on either side. A woman by betrothal becomes the specialised Noa (Tippa-malku) of a certain man, but subsequently becomes the Pirrauru, or group-wife, of a number of men who are his own or tribal brothers. ”

“ We ourselves are so accustomed to speak of the sun "rising" and "setting," that we almost mentally disregard the fact of the earth's rotation, nor does our position as to the earth itself appear other than that of being always perpendicular to it, with a permanent sky over our heads. Thus we, in so far, perpetuate a savage belief; and more than this, there are even now persons who, otherwise sane, believe the earth to be a flat plane. It seems that such pseudo-beliefs are an inheritance to us from our savage ancestors, and from which we are not able to free ourselves. ”

“ When some one impiously revealed the secrets of the Jeraeil to women, and thereby brought the anger of Mungan-ngaua on the Kurnai, he sent his fire, the Aurora Australis, which filled the whole space between the earth and the sky. Men went mad with fear, and speared each other, fathers killing their children, husbands their wives, and brethren each other. Then the sea rushed over the land and nearly all mankind was drowned. Those who survived became the Muk-kurnai. Some turned into animals, birds, reptiles, fishes, and Tundun and his wife became porpoises. ”

“ No one would think of injuring a man who brings news of important matters. But if any one were to molest him, the whole of the people would take the matter up, and especially his own friends. The messenger does not carry anything emblematical of his mission beyond the stick, even when carrying a message calling a meeting for an expiatory combat, or for a Ganitch, the initiation ceremony. But when conveying news of death, he smears his face with pipe-clay in token of his message. ”

“ I use the word "tribe" as meaning a number of people who occupy a definite tract of country, who recognise a common relationship and have a common speech, or dialects of the same. The tribes-people recognise some common bond which distinguishes them from other tribes, usually a tribal name, which may be their word for "man," that is, an aboriginal of Australia. ”

“ The boys and their Kabos stood in a row and the men danced in a circle before them, shouting the name for "legs." This kind of dance is merely jumping round in a circle, with the legs wide apart and the arms stretched straight downwards swinging across each other in front, the word being loudly uttered, rhythmically with the body movement. After doing this for a minute or two, the circle of dancers opened, and joined on to the end of the line of Kabos and novices, the whole then forming a new circle. One of the Gommeras darted into this enclosed space, and danced the magic dance. ”

“ The common practice of placing logs on the grave is, I think, not so much to prevent the ghost from getting out, as to prevent the dingoes from disinterring the body. The breaking of the bones by the Herbert River tribes is a very clear example of the precautions taken to prevent the ghost from wandering, although it is an exceptionally severe means of doing so. The practice of burying implements, ornaments, or weapons with the dead is clear proof that they are supposed to continue their lives as ghosts in the sky-land much as they had done when in the body on earth. ”

“ It was the duty of a man to care for his wife's father, to give things to him, such as opossum rugs, and to provide him with game, which was under this practice called Ngul-lurp. If the old man was ill, it was the duty of his son-in-law to go and take care of him. If there were a fight in which they took opposite sides, the son-in-law would take care not to do his father-in-law any harm. As in all other tribes, a man could not have any communication with his wife's mother, or her sister; nor could a woman look at or speak to her daughter's husband, nor his brother. ”

“ They believe more or less in their own powers, perhaps because they believe in those of others. The belief in magic in its various forms—in dreams, omens, and warnings—is so universal, and mingles so intimately with the daily life of the aborigines, that no one, not even those who practise deceit themselves, doubts the power of other medicine-men, or that if men fail to effect their magical purposes the failure is due to error in the practice, or to the superior skill or power of some adverse practitioner. ”

“ The Murup, Yambo, Bulabong, or by whatever name it is known, represents during life the self-consciousness of the individual. Its apparent ability to leave the body during sleep naturally leads to the further belief that death is merely the permanent disability to return to the body, produced by the evil magic of some enemy. Thus it seems that the belief has arisen that the individual continues to exist after death, although usually invisible to the living. ”

“ At one part of the ceremonies the men, while the Kippers are lying down, make a long and narrow fire, on one side of which they sit, while the boys, who have been roused up, sit on the other in a sleepy state. The men pretend that it is stormy, and that it rains, making noises to represent the wind. Then a number of the men hop about and croak like frogs. Finally the men all dance and then extinguish the fire by jumping on it with their feet. In the darkness the Kippers are led back to their camp. ”