DUELS
Bragging preferred to fighting—Duels frequent among the
women—Petty provocations—The “_Kutturu_”—Men use similar
sticks and boomerangs for striking purposes—Waddies and
clubs described—The “_Damatba_”—Wooden swords—Duels with
reed spears—Stone dagger duels—Heavy spear duels—Chivalrous
methods—“Bone-pointing” and other methods of suggesting
death to an enemy—“Pointing” sticks—How the “boned” person
is affected—Counter-charm the only cure—The medicine man or
“_Nangarri_”—His witchcraft—The recovery.
Although under ordinary circumstances the aboriginal of Australia is a
peaceable, placid individual, who prefers to talk of what he could do
to his enemy rather than look for trouble in a hostile camp, yet, being
human, there are naturally extenuating circumstances, which might thrust
the obligation upon his shoulders to pick up arms and fight for the sake
of his individual honour or of his tribe’s safety. In the former case a
duel is arranged, in the latter a regular warfare is waged, which might
last a day or continue, off and on, for years at a time.
Duels are perhaps more frequently fought among the women than the men,
the cause in most cases being trivial. A common disturbance of the
peace is brought on by petty theft. One woman might, intentionally or
otherwise, appropriate a small article belonging to another. When the
article is missed by the owner, an argument ensues, which soon warms up
to a strained pitch of excitement. Abusive epitaphs become prolific,
which repeatedly embody references to excrement and other filth.
Eventually the irate hags can constrain themselves no longer and each
produces her fighting stick, known throughout central and northern
Australia as “_kutturu_.” Walking towards each other, and all the time
striking the ground in front of them, from left to right, and from
right to left, the women continue their vilification. In the Arunndta
tongue this is something after the following style: “_Uttnarranduddi,
uttnatikkia, atutnia, arrelinjerrai!_”
The ground is struck with the heavy sticks immediately in front of the
opponent’s feet, so vigorously that dust and dirt fly into the air. It is
not long before the foot of one of the gins is struck; and then the fight
begins. The gin that was hit immediately lifts her kutturu and aims a
blow at the head of the offender. But the latter in all probability will
have been prepared to ward off the blow.
The kutturu consists of a heavy “ironwood” stick, on an average about
three feet long and of circular section; it is bluntly pointed at each
end and usually has a carved decoration upon its surface. The parrying
party holds the stick with its pointed ends between her palms, and, by
moving or swaying it from side to side in an inclined position, diverts
the force of the impact from her head. The duellists take it turn about
to strike and parry. The head is the principal mark, but it is not
against the rules to aim at the fingers. When the latter are struck, it
not infrequently happens that one or two of them are broken.
If the antagonist is too clever at warding off a blow, a gin might
occasionally alter her tactics and try to stab the head opposite her with
the point of the kutturu. If the attempt proves successful, a very deep
gash often results, followed by a prolific flow of blood. The damaged gin
wails aloud and drops her kutturu whilst she catches the blood, which is
pouring from her wound, in the hollow of her hand and throws it in the
other’s face.
The triumphant assailant does not take a mean advantage of her “score,”
but replies to the blood-slinging by rushing to the nearest fire, from
which she scoops a double handful of hot ashes to throw at the lamenting
one. This is by no means the end of the trouble, but really incenses the
combatants to more desperate action.
So soon as the wounded gin has overcome the shock, she plucks fresh
courage and again takes up the argument with her kutturu. The fight
continues until one of the gins receives a blow on the head severe enough
to disable her, or until both have kept the strife going to a stage of
complete exhaustion.
When a gin has been disabled, and lies more or less in an unconscious
condition upon the ground, the victor stands over her, triumphantly
swinging her kutturu, whilst her tongue dispels the hatred by talking
incessantly without opposition.
During the whole time of this heated altercation, the camp has been
generally disorganized. Other women are vociferating wildly, children
are screaming, a few score dogs yelping, and the men are sitting around
quietly and gloomily, with their eyes turned from the scene of the duel,
and only occasionally exchanging a few words in a subdued whisper.
The method the men adopt for settling their disputes among themselves is
not unlike that of the women, but more systematic. They place themselves
face to face upon a clear piece of ground, with their kutturus in
their hands, and about half a chain apart. After the customary abusive
preliminaries, the psychological moment arrives, when one man rushes at
the other carrying his weapon in both hands behind his back, and, as he
runs, preparing for a monstrous blow. When he reaches to within striking
distance of his opponent, he pulls up short, and, with the momentum
created by his run behind him, deals an awful whack. But the other man
has placed himself in the defensive attitude, and, as the weapon falls,
he springs forwards and upwards to parry the blow destined to crash upon
his skull. The striker now retraces his steps and prepares to receive the
onslaught from the opposite side. This procedure of alternate attack
and defence continues until one of the men falls or both combatants
are thoroughly exhausted. All through the fight, however, there is a
wonderful display of power, agility, and chivalry, the figures of both
the striker and receiver being conspicuously graceful in their movements
(Plate XIII, 2).
Where the boomerang is known it, too, is extensively used, in conjunction
with the shield, by duellists to settle minor altercations. The offended
party throws one of his missiles into the camp of his rival as a summons
to the fight, whereupon the latter immediately responds by throwing
another back, and walks out into the open, carrying with him a single
boomerang and a shield. Both men now start a war-dance, during which they
gradually approach each other, lifting their legs high in the knees,
brandishing their boomerangs in the air, and holding their shields in
front of their bodies. After a while, they close in; and the real fight
begins. Whenever an uncovered spot presents itself on either man, the
opponent, with the quickness of lightning, attempts to strike it with his
weapon. The hands in particular are selected as the best marks to quickly
put the rival out of action; and this opportunity is never missed when it
presents itself to the quick eye of the native.
Waddies and clubs of various forms are used all over Australia, both
with and without shields, to decide the rights or wrongs of individual
grievances.
There is no hard and fast line of demarcation between a waddy or
fighting-stick and a club. The original conception of either is a short
stick or truncheon, which is used both for beating and throwing.
The commonest form is a cylindrical rod of hard wood with a smooth or
vertically grooved exterior and rounded ends. It is either straight or
curved.
The Bathurst Islanders have a type similar to the above, but with a
slightly swollen distal end. The stick often carries a sharp spike, which
projects from the same end.
The largest fighting-sticks are to be seen in the Forrest River district
in the far north-western district of Western Australia, measuring up to
four and a half feet in length. The stick tapers from the top towards the
handle end, and has a flat face at either extremity. A gripping surface
is made by roughly incising the thinner end all round for a distance of
four or five inches.
A peculiar combination of implement with weapon was used by the women
of the lower River Murray tribes. It consisted of a stick with a blade
at one end and a knob at the other, the one moiety serving as a digging
stick, the other as a club.
Along the Cooper Creek, a large, stout baton of mulga, with a globate
knob at the handle end, was used by the Wongkanguru, Yantowannta, and
other tribes.
Some very shapely clubs belonged to the Narrinyerri. They were made of
casuarina wood, and had a heavy, inflated head, which was usually pointed
off at the top. The handle was moderately thin and had a number of
circular grooves cut near its end to prevent the hand from slipping when
the wood was wielded. Further west, on the Nullarbor Plains, the thick
end was not pointed off, but, on the contrary, was perceptibly flattened.
In both types mentioned, the surface was well smoothed and polished,
although the clubs of the coastal tribes along the Great Australian Bight
were generally longitudinally grooved.
A rather fanciful form of club, reminding one of the medieval spiked
clubs, was found in the possession of the fast disappearing Yantowannta
tribe at Innamincka. A stick, nearly two feet six inches long, and
circular in section, had an enlargement near the head-end, which was
deeply grooved vertically and, in the upper portion, circumferentially
also, the intersection of the grooves producing a number of pointed
prominences.
Used in conjunction with a heavy three-sided shield, the south-eastern
tribes of South Australia fought most of their duels with a dangerous
type of waddy, some two feet or more long, which had an attenuated knob
at the handle end and a flat, angular projection at the opposite end; the
latter was sharp and pointed. The weapon was known as “_lionila_,” and,
from our point of view, might be classed as a battle axe.
In the Roebuck Bay district, a flat, hard-wood club is found, the sides
of which are straight and slightly tapering towards the handle end; the
edges being rounded off. One of the flat sides is usually ornamented with
an engraved geometrical pattern.
The Larrekiya and Wogait construct a flat throwing weapon, not unlike a
small cricket bat in shape, from six to twelve inches long, which they
call “_damatba_.” It has a short handle and very sharp edges, and, being
hurled at an enemy edgewise, it flies through the air with a revolving
motion. If any part of the native’s naked body is struck with this
weapon, a very deep wound is always inflicted, from the effects of which
the unfortunate victim might easily bleed to death.
Under the category of fighting-sticks we might also mention the wooden
swords, of which some form or other is known all over the continent.
In its normal form, the sword is a long and narrow, lanceolate blade of
hard and heavy wood, up to five feet in length. The sides are convex, and
the edges fairly sharp. The surfaces are either smooth or longitudinally
grooved, and in addition decorated with finely incised patterns of
different descriptions. These swords are much used by the Minning tribe
of the Eucla district.
The Cooper Creek tribes make the weapon with a slight curve in it, like
a boomerang, the length being about the same as in the previous type.
Among the Dieri it goes by the name of “_marriwirri_.” The Arunndta and
Aluridja forms are not made so long, but slightly wider, and of very
heavy mulga wood.
In the northern coastal districts, the type is different in so far as it
tapers towards that end, which is to serve as the handle, and terminates
there in a flat or slightly concave base. The haft is not infrequently
bound round with vegetable fibre, and subsequently covered with beeswax,
to prevent the hands from slipping.
These weapons are all used with two hands for striking and parrying blows
during a duel. When about to “receive” a blow, the native takes the
precaution to keep his elbows close against his body to avoid the risk of
having his arm broken by the ricochet of the heavy weapon. A favourite
mark is the opponent’s hands; and the fighter has to carefully guard
them by adroitly and instantly shifting the sword sideways the moment he
perceives that the blow has been aimed at them.
The northern and north-western tribes use light reed spears when settling
quarrels between two individuals. The spear is about five feet long
and has a tapering head of mangrove wood, which is inserted into the
top end of the reed shaft. All coastal tribes, from the Adelaide River
westwards to the Ord River, use this spear, but it is not known in
central Australia. The opponents, standing about forty or fifty feet
apart, throw the weapons at each other with wonderful precision, but
before the dangerous little missile can reach its mark, the would-be
recipient dodges it with equal skill. A number of such spears is carried
by each combatant. Whilst the duel is proceeding, the two natives dance
in defiance to taunt the rival, grotesquely jumping from one foot to the
other, holding the arms semi-erect and bent at the elbows and wrists,
whilst the body is thrown forward and the head kept back. When a spear
passes very near to or grazes its mark, the native greets his escape with
a short but strangely articulated exclamation sounding like “_irr_.” The
throwers are constantly on the move, and, whenever possible, one stoops
to pick up a new spear from a bundle of them lying at his side. The
little missiles are so light that, when they hit the ground, they skip
along the surface and can be recovered uninjured. Although these spears
seem more like toys than weapons, they are nevertheless most formidable
on account of their sharp point and the velocity with which they travel.
A method which is in vogue among the central Australian tribes, like the
Arunndta and Dieri, is the dagger duel. The dagger employed is a long
stone-knife with a grip or haft of porcupine resin; the Arunndta name
for it is “_putta ildurra_.” The combatants hold one of such daggers in
one hand and a light shield of kurrajong wood in the other, and thus
equipped they approach each other. After some preliminaries in the way of
dancing and an accompaniment of excited shrieking, the men close in upon
one another. With the shield they not only catch the well-directed stabs
before any bodily injury is done, but they also thrust the opponent back
to keep him at arm’s length. It is not an uncommon event for such a duel
to be fought for a considerable time without any bloodshed, the skilful
parrying checking many a fatal blow until eventually utter exhaustion
appeases the thirst for revenge and soothes the hatred, which was only
too evident at the beginning of the duel. At other times severe gashes
are inflicted, which occasionally terminate fatally. Vide Fig. 4.
[Illustration: Fig. 4. Two Arunndta carvings of scenes in a dagger-duel
(× 1/3). Tracing.]
The most serious of all duels is undoubtedly that in which the heavy
spear is used. The method is similar to that of the light spear fights,
with the distinction that those engaged in the strife stand further
apart, and do not run the same amount of risk by exposing themselves to
the same extent as in the former case. It is recognized that a “hit” by
one of the large heavy-bladed spears will result in a dangerous wound,
and, therefore, the men face the ordeal in all conscientiousness, knowing
that if they can prove themselves equal to their opponent’s dexterity for
a reasonable length of time, the moment will arrive when the strife might
be terminated by arbitration. One occasionally meets with a person who
has a broken portion of a spear-head deeply embedded in the musculature
of his thigh or other region of his body, where a violent inflammation
around the lesion has caused the sufferer much pain because he has not
been able to extract the offending piece of wood or stone from the
tissue.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXII_
1. Sunday Islander making fire by the twirling process during a
ceremonial.
2. “_Kaloa_” or mangrove raft, Worora tribe, Glenelg River district.]
In the Balmaningarra district of the northern Kimberleys of Western
Australia, the warriors hold the shield (which they call “_karwinnunga_”)
in their left hand, but, if necessity arises, they quickly change it to
the right. As a spear whizzes by harmlessly, or is skilfully warded off,
the defendant sounds a short triumphant “_p-r-r-r_” with protruding and
vibrating lips. When about to “receive” a missile, the native stands
in much the same attitude as that adopted by a modern rapier-duellist.
The moment, however, he realizes that his antagonist’s aim has been
inaccurate, or he has been successful in dodging or warding off the
death-bringing stick, he balances himself on one leg, cocks the other
under his buttocks, and defiantly throws his arms above his head, jeering
at his enemy and inviting him to throw once more, crying: “Look! I am
defenceless, and I am exposing my body to you! I have no fear of you;
your spears can only scratch the ground as the yam-stick of a woman
digging for grubs!”
Barely has he finished his taunting sentence, and before the other man
has had time to prepare for another throw, he bounds forward and projects
his weapon. During the fight, the antics of the men, especially of the
one on the defensive, are remarkable, jumping from leg to leg, at one
time holding the shield straight in front of the body whilst covering the
head, at another, standing erect with the shield at about the level of
his chest.
During their duels, an admirable spirit of chivalry is displayed by
the combatants. If, for instance, a shield breaks, the man who has the
advantage refuses to fight until the broken weapon has been replaced.
The same regulation applies to a broken spear, but not to a broken
spear-head; if the latter breaks, the circumstance is looked upon as
the result of bad workmanship, and the fight continues. Only a certain
number of spears is carried by the parties; and any damaged weapon might
be replaced from a bundle held in reserve by the gins, who stand in
readiness. When the missiles have been spent on both sides, the parties
change ends to collect their spears, after which the hostilities are
resumed.
Irrespective of any of the methods here described, whereby the natives
actually fight with weapons for the sake of honour or revenge, it is
quite as customary among all Australian tribes to bring about the
downfall of a rival or enemy by the magic influence of suggestion. This
is the wonderfully potent method of “pointing” death at a man, who may
or may not be present or visible. The process is usually referred to as
“pointing the bone,” or simply “boning.”
In the Alligator district of the Northern Territory, the excrement of
a man, who is to be sent to his death, is collected and roasted over
a fire; after which a little of it is taken and mixed with the resin
of porcupine grass. A ceremonial dance follows during the night, which
is of a very secret character, men as well as women participating. The
chants which are sung implore the birds of night—the owl, the plover,
and the curlew—not to betray the men who are seeking revenge. At the far
end of the ground, cleared for the occasion, a hole is dug, in which a
fire is burned while the ceremony is in progress. Enchanting songs are
now rendered, which are to entice the spirit-father of the doomed man to
attend. A little later one of the principal performers marches forwards,
carrying a small ball of resin mixed with the burned excrement, together
with a short stick representing the spirit-father. At a given moment, he
begins to dance and, with his free hand, catches hold of his scrotum.
When he arrives at the hole, in which the fire is burning, other men
snatch the glowing embers and clear the ashes out of the way. The dancer
throws the resin-ball containing the excrement into the hole and covers
it with hot sand. The moment it strikes the hot ground, the resin fizzles
and crackles; and those sounds are taken to be the voice of the spirit
calling the victim from the earth.
Shortly after the ceremony these facts are made known to the unfortunate
who has been selected to die; they are usually conveyed to him by one
or two eye-witnesses of the ceremony. Overcome with consternation and
terror, the fellow immediately begins to fret; and death will inevitably
be the outcome, unless the counter-influence of a medicine man or other
tribal power can make itself felt beforehand.
Upon other occasions in the same district, the footprint of a man, who
has been decreed to die, might be found upon a clay-flat or a river bank.
The track must be intact; if it be in the least degree imperfect, it is
considered useless for the purpose. Taking for granted, then, that it
is clear and well-defined, the mould is cut out of the clay in toto and
buried in an anthill. There it is secreted until such time as the spirit
of the doomed man’s father is supposed to be in attendance at a tribal
ceremonial, when it is fetched and broken over a blazing fire. This act
answers the same purpose as the burning of the resin and excrement in the
previous case.
An old Arunndta custom was to “cut the shadow” of a man, who was to die,
with a sharpened mussel-shell knife called “_langa langa_.”
When a man of the Worora tribe dies, his relatives resolve to avenge
his death, which they suppose was the work of an enemy, whom they name.
During the obsequies, a bone is taken from the arm of the deceased,
usually the humerus, but occasionally the radius, and small portions cut
or scraped off it, to be handed to the nearest of kin, who officiate as
the avenging party. The little group sit facing the direction in which
the supposed murderer is seen, or at any rate is known to be residing.
Together they place some of the pieces of their relative’s bone, which
they call “_gibba_,” into their mouths, and, after chewing them for
a while, they spit the pulp towards their victim, at the same moment
naming him as the perpetrator of the deed—the cause of their bereavement.
The Sunday Islanders adopt a similar method, but refer to the bone as
“_käu-käu_”.
Most of the tribes are in possession of differently shaped sticks and
bones, with which the death-pointing is done. These are usually about
three or four inches long, pointed at one or both ends, and containing a
small bleb of resin at one end, to which a piece of human hair-string is
attached. When the instrument is of bone, it is usually a piece of the
dead man’s skeleton. The Aluridja take the fibula of the man whose death
is to be avenged, and construct a flattish “bone,” pointed off at both
ends. The Arunndta select the same bone, or the ulna, which they scrape
down to a long tapering point at one end; to the opposite extremity they
attach a little porcupine resin. Occasionally one finds these objects
carried in hollow bone or bark-receptacles. Another common form of the
Arunndta is a short stick, at either end of which a blunt arrow head knob
is carved, round one of which a long piece of human hair-string is tied.
A simple punctate design is at times burned into the stick. Some of the
southern tribes of the Northern Territory have pointing stones, which
are shaped much like a stone-knife, hafted with porcupine resin and
suspended by a long piece of human hair-string.
A number of such pointing instruments are constantly carried about by
certain men of the tribe, whilst others are kept buried in places only
known to a few. Often a stick is constructed just when the occasion
requires one, and when there happens to be none available.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXIII_
Aluridja men “pointing” the bone.
“One man cowers upon the ground ... whilst the second, kneeling at the
side of him, holds his pointing stick at arm’s length....”]
Any fully initiated men may make use of a pointing-bone or stick,
but when the grievance concerns the tribe in general, the operation
is performed by the magician or medicine man. Women do not generally
carry these sticks, but the Aluridja, and no doubt others also, allow
their gins to charm their yam-sticks, with which they then “kill” their
antagonists. A charmed yam-stick is believed to paralyse the arms of any
person, whom it touches, when appealed to by the owner; consequently one
of this kind is chosen for duelling whenever possible.
When a man has been condemned to death, the person or persons, who are
to administer the fatal charm, are nominated. The “pointing” apparatus
are produced, and with them the men take up a kneeling position a little
distance away from the camp. Facing the doomed man’s habitation, they
lift the bone, or stick, to shoulder height and point it at the victim.
The long piece of hair-string, which is attached to the instrument, is
tightly tied around the charmer’s arm, above the elbow. This is done
to endow his system with the magic influence of the pointing-stick he
is holding; and that magic, he believes, passes into the destructive
words, which he is uttering: “May your skeleton become saturated with the
foulness of my stick, so that your flesh will rot and its stench attract
the grubs, which live in the ground, to come and devour it. May your
bones turn to water and soak into the sand, so that your spirit may never
know your whereabouts. May the wind shrivel your skin like a leaf before
a fire, and your blood dry up like the mud in a clay-pan.”
There is a great number of different methods employed in administering
the fatal charm of the pointing-stick, all of which, however, are after
much the same principle. A common practice amongst the Aluridja is for
the man, about to use the stick, to leave the camp and seclude himself
behind a tree or other obstacle. He squats upon the heel of one foot
which he has tucked under his body. He points the bone or stick straight
at the man who is to die, or, it may be, merely in the direction he
imagines he would strike him. Whilst administering the curse, he holds
the object in the hand of his outstretched right arm.
Both the Arunndta and Aluridja often work in pairs after the following
style: One man cowers upon the ground, with or without his pointing-stick
in his hand, whilst the second, kneeling at the side of him, holds his
pointing-stick at arm’s length over the former man’s back, and directs
it towards the person who is about to receive the evil charm. Vide Plate
XXIII.
To make their charm more effective, and the death-penalty more certain,
central Australian tribes not uncommonly tie the claws of a bird of
prey, the eagle-hawk by preference, to the pointing instrument. It is
believed that by this trick the evil magic works like the grip of a bird,
by clutching the doomed one’s chest and crushing it. If by accident
the unfortunate fellow becomes cognizant of this, and it happens that,
as actually is frequently the case after a big feast, he suffers from
indigestion, he naturally interprets the symptoms of his indisposition
as being due to the invisible, tightening girth, which the charm has
laid about him. The fatal termination arrives at a much earlier date in
consequence.
A man who discovers that he is being boned by an enemy is, indeed,
a pitiable sight. He stands aghast, with his eyes staring at the
treacherous pointer, and with his hands lifted as though to ward off the
lethal medium, which he imagines is pouring into his body (Plate XXIV).
His cheeks blanch and his eyes become glassy, and the expression of his
face becomes horribly distorted, like that of one stricken with palsy.
He attempts to shriek, but usually the sound chokes in his throat, and
all one might see is froth at his mouth. His body begins to tremble and
the muscles twitch involuntarily. He sways backwards and falls to the
ground, and for a short time appears to be in a swoon; but soon after he
begins to writhe as if in mortal agony, and, covering his face with his
hands, begin to moan. After a while he becomes more composed and crawls
to his wurley. From this time onwards he sickens and frets, refusing to
eat, and keeping aloof from the daily affairs of the tribe. Unless help
is forthcoming in the shape of a counter-charm, administered by the hands
of the “_Nangarri_” or medicine-man, his death is only a matter of a
comparatively short time. If the coming of the medicine-man is opportune,
he might be saved.
The medicine-man of Australian tribes is not so much an individual
who has the knowledge of medicinal values of herbs and of surgical
practices as one who is the recognized sorcerer, capable of rebuking the
ills wrought by an enemy or evil spirit (Plate VIII). He attains his
distinction either by heredity or by accidental, but maybe exemplary,
craftiness. In the former case, he is looked upon as a favoured son,
who has inherited from his tribal and ancestral fathers the magic art
of neutralizing the evil charm of a spirit or enemy, which manifests
itself in prostration or disease; at the same time he is the official
power of the community, who alone can outwit the evil spirit, control the
elements, and keep pestilence away from the camp. This hereditary art is
recognized as a concrete matter, which is believed to have been deposited
within the body of the particular individual by spirit-ancestors or
nearer spirit-relations; this matter might have taken the form of a
special variety of wood, small bones of animal or man, and a number of
sacred stones, all of which the made medicine-man carries about with him
in his abdomen, more or less replacing the ordinary entrails originally
occupying the cavity. Each tribe has a number of these medicine-men,
whose rank is gauged according to age and the principle they have lived
up to. For instance, in the qualification of the early medicine-men of
the Adelaide tribe, it was deemed necessary that the candidate should
taste human flesh at least once is his life. In the central Australian
tribes a medicine-man should not eat of kangaroo which has been feeding
upon new green grass; if he does, some of his mystic powers will leak
out of his body, and he will immediately drop in the estimation of his
tribal admirers. If the offence is repeated a number of times, he is
disrespected entirely as a professional sorcerer. There are, of course,
a great number of restrictions, which the conscientious practitioner
observes most punctiliously.
Every medicine-man of any standing at all has his own history of
qualification, which he does not hesitate to make known to the public
at opportune moments. Old Kai Kai, the leading Nangarri of the western
Arunndta on the Finke River, relates how he, as a young hunter, became
detached from the rest of the party, and, after tracking a wounded
kangaroo for a whole day, he eventually abandoned the pursuit to make
for a rock-hole in the stony James Ranges. It was nigh on sunset when
he arrived at the hole, tired and thirsty. He threw his wommera and
spears upon the ground, and eagerly lay over the cool fluid to still
his parching thirst. But when he sipped the water a tadpole entered his
mouth, and, before he could spit it out, it slipped down his gullet and
dropped into his abdominal cavity with a bump that caused him much pain.
When he recovered, he again tried to soothe his burning lips, but met
with a similar fate. Several times more he tried, but in vain; as soon
as his burning lips touched the surface of the water, a slimy tadpole
slipped into his mouth and fell into his stomach with a painful thud. In
desperation he made a final attempt to carefully approach the water’s
level, when he beheld what he took to be the image of his face and body
reflected from below. Horror overcame him, however, for the image was
that of another man! And, as he looked again, he noticed that the body
of the image was transparent, and inside of it there were just as many
rounded pebbles as he had swallowed tadpoles! He collapsed at the side
of the waterhole and slept like a dead man, for how long he could not
say. When at length he woke up, he found himself among the reeds of the
flowing sheet of water on the Finke River, which the white people call
Running Waters. He now quenched his thirst. And when the recollections
of his experience at the rock-hole came back to him, he realized that
the man who had looked at him through the water had been a spirit, and
he could still feel the pebbles he had placed inside of him. Now it was
obvious to him that he had been ordained a Nangarri, and he returned to
his camp, where his relatives were anxiously awaiting him.
Having been called to the side of a “boned” patient, the Nangarri allows
a number of the relatives to be present when he applies his weird method
of treatment. At first he cuts some ridiculous antics, during which he
mumbles or chants some almost inaudible verses. The patient is, in the
meantime, laid flat on the ground. The Nangarri approaches the sufferer
from the foot end and, throwing himself upon the ground, crawls right on
to the chest of the former, biting the skin of his patient at several
places as he crawls on to the body. Having “located” the seat of the
trouble, the “doctor” slips on to the ground, and, picking up a fold
of the skin with the underlying fatty tissue between his fingers over
the vital spot, applies his lips, and, perhaps, his teeth, too, to it.
He sucks, bites, and kneads the skin, frequently lifting his head and
spitting blood on to the ground. The patient is all the while groaning
with pain; if he becomes unmanageable, he is called to order by the
Nangarri. At length the climax arrives. The Nangarri withdraws from the
patient, his cheeks visibly inflated, and, conscious of the expectant
eyes of all present, he empties the contents of his mouth into his hands,
which he holds like a receptacle in front of him. The fluid, consisting
of saliva and blood, is allowed to trickle to the ground or into the
fire. Then a triumphant chuckle announces that the malignant element
has been discovered! With feigned exaltation, the great healer steps
towards the awe-stricken relatives, holding between the index-finger and
thumb of his right hand an article, such as a small stick, a bone, a
pebble, a meteoric bomb, or a talon, which he avows is the cause of the
“boned” man’s affliction, and, having now been skillfully and permanently
removed, the unhappy fellow has nothing more to tear.
The good news is immediately conveyed to the prostrate form on the
ground. The effect is astounding. The miserable fellow, until that moment
well on the road to death, raises his head to gaze in wonderment upon the
object held by the Nangarri, which, in all seriousness, he imagines has
been extracted from the inside of his body. Satisfied with its reality,
he even lifts himself into a sitting position and calls for some water
to drink. The crisis has now been passed, and the patient’s recovery is
speedy and complete. Without the Nangarri’s interception, the “boned”
fellow would have fretted himself to death for a certainty, but the sight
of a concrete object, claimed by the recognized authority of the tribe to
be the cause of the complaint, signifies recovery to him, and with its
removal comes a new lease of life. The implicit faith a native cherishes
in the magic powers of his tribal medicine-man results in cures, which
exceed anything recorded by the faith-healing disciples of more cultured
communities.