for food because they are the property of sorcerers, who, the blacks believe, inflict fearful diseases on men that eat of animals that they have reserved for themselves.
They have other remarkable customs in regard to food. Mr. D. Stewart, of Mount Gambier, states, in a letter to the Rev. Lorimer Fison, that the natives of the south-east corner of South Australia have a kind of partnership, formed in boyhood and continued through life, in the division of kangaroo meat. When a kangaroo is killed, each partner takes a specified portion. As each man has some eight or ten partners, the whole tribe is mixed up in it.
These laws, with various modifications arising out of the diverse character of the food supplies, are known in all parts of the continent, and bear a resemblance to some of those that are obeyed by the savage tribes of Africa.[1] As to their origin, or as to any changes that have been effected in them, the blacks know nothing.
According to information afforded by Mr. John Green, the young amongst the natives of the Yarra tribe were forbidden to eat the following:—
| Common Name. | Native Name. | |
| Opossum (young) | Walart. | |
| (They might eat the old male opossums.) | ||
| Flying squirrel | Warran. | |
| Porcupine | Ka-arrn. | |
| Emu | Boorra-mile. | |
| Bustard | Woorna-bit. | |
| Ducks | Toolim. | |
| Swan | Goona-warra. | |
| Iguana | Pujing. | |
| Turtle | Koorrong-nile. | |
| Large fish | Woora-mook. | |
If any young person, they were told, should eat any of the flesh of the animals above named, unless and until he was given authority to eat it by the old men, he would sicken and die, and not one of the doctors could cure him. After the age of thirty he could eat any of them with impunity.
It will be observed that no mention is made in the list of the kangaroo, bandicoot, wombat, native bear, or native dog, or of the native companion, the cockatoo, the pigeon, the quail, or of parrots, or of the eggs of birds and reptiles, or of eels or snakes, or of any kind of vegetable food. The food available to the young men was various; and the few kinds prohibited seem to have been selected by the elders for reasons not apparent on the surface.
The Rev. John Bulmer, of Lake Tyers, in Gippsland, says, in a letter to me, that his experience with regard to the restrictions before and after initiation is as follows:—
"Among the Gippsland blacks it is usual to forbid the use of certain kinds of food to the uninitiated. They are forbidden to eat the following:—All animals of the female gender except the wombat. They may eat all
- ↑ Savage Africa, by Winwood Reade, 1863.
