rolled up like a "Bamarook,"[1] and caught the spears in front; but other men came behind him, and he was killed. He was full of spears. He was left lying there. I don't know what became of him; I expect the wild dogs eat him. Then they caught the women, and each man who had first speared the man took his wife. Then the men killed in the camp were skinned, and the skin roasted and eaten. Panky Panky was a very big, fat man, twice as fat as "Billy the Bull."[2] All the men who were there helped to eat the skin. Then the camp was thrown down on the dead men, and Tare-ngun and the others went away with the women. One woman had a fine little boy at her back, in her 'possum rug. One old man took him out, and, holding him by the feet, knocked his head against a tree, and killed him like a 'possum. Some said, "Why did you do that; we wanted to keep him?" He said, "By-and-by, when he grows up, he will kill you." To an enquiry what roast skin tasted like, Harry says, 'Like "porcupine;"[3] and Toby, otherwise Wunda Garewut (which may be freely translated, 'Where is the creek?'), remarks, 'Yes; like porcupine. I once eat a piece of a Tarra blackfellow, when I was a young man.'"
Mr. Hewitt's account of the practice, as it existed amongst the warlike tribes of Gippsland, shows, probably, the furthest extent to which the horrible custom was usually followed, and may be taken as a fair statement of the facts as affecting, at any rate, the natives of Victoria. In the northern parts of the continent, and in the interior, when there is a scarcity of food, it is not doubted that revolting instances of cruelty, followed by cannibalism, are not rare.[4]
The Habits of Animals (from information furnished by the Aborigines).
About seven years ago I obtained from the Superintendents of the principal Aboriginal Stations in Victoria, accounts, taken down from the lips of the natives, of the habits of some of the animals which it was presumed they were well acquainted with; and I now give these in the form in which I received them. They are valuable—not so much because of what they contain, but—as showing in what direction the mental energies of the natives are directed. All that concerns them as hunters and fishers they know; but questions relating to matters of no practical importance to them in their mode of life they neglect.
As regards things of interest to them, and as regards facts in connection with their pursuits, they are full of knowledge, and capable of imparting the knowledge they possess; but they are invariably wearied, and to some extent annoyed, when questioned on subjects to which they are indifferent.
- ↑ Bamarook is the oval shield with which reed-spears or boomerangs are warded off. Turn-numy is the long narrow shield with which blows from the waddy are stopped.
- ↑ Billy the Bull, a stout black, of Lake Tyers, and perhaps the strongest blackfellow here.
- ↑ Echidna.
- ↑ Eyre quotes the official report of Mr. Protector Sievewright, of Lake Tarong (Port Phillip district), published in August 1844, in which some details are given of an instance of cannibalism that are almost too shocking to record. The natives seem to have fallen upon the dead body of their enemy with a ferocity surpassing that of the most savage amongst carnivorous animals. The liver and viscera were torn from the corpse and eaten raw!—Journals of Expeditions of Discovery, vol. II., pp. 257-8.
