When the people of the tribe see Wer-raap again, he is covered with feathers. He has had a long flight. He visits the sick man, and if after a time the sick man gets well, Wer-raap relates all the facts connected with the recovery of the kidney-fat; but if the man dies, Wer-raap tells them that the wicked black had eaten the kidney-fat before he could fly to him.
If any one has a pain in the chest, the doctor examines him. He probably finds that the Wer-raap of another tribe, instructed by other Len-ba-moorr, has put a piece of opossum rug in the body. The man is taken away from the camp by the doctor, who lays him upon the ground, puts his mouth to the part affected, and at intervals sings songs taught by his own Len-ba-moorr. In these songs he conjures the Len-ba-moorr to enter into the part, and put out whatever is causing the pain or sickness. This sometimes is continued for many hours. At length the doctor gets out something, which he shows to the sick man, and to others subsequently. If the doctor succeeds in extracting all the substances put into the body by the strange Wer-raap, the man gets well. Sometimes the strange Wer-raap, instructed by his own Len-ba-moorr, is too strong for the doctor, and in that case the man dies.
Some fifteen years ago, Wonga, a principal man of the Yarra tribe, was afflicted with ophthalmia, and he went into the Melbourne Hospital, where he remained for several weeks. When he came out he could see nothing. But Tall-boy, a celebrated Wer-raap belonging to the Goulburn tribe, which at that time was encamped on the Yarra, undertook to cure him. Tall-boy took out of Wonga's head behind his eyes several rotten straws (which Wonga carefully preserved for several years), and on the second morning after the operation Wonga could see the ships in the Bay, and on the third morning he could see the mountains at the head of the Yarra. No one doubts the power of a skilful Wer-raap.
The spirits (Len-ba-moorr) instruct the doctors as to the best mode of killing a man of a strange or hostile tribe. If it is desired to compass his death by slow degrees, that may be done in several ways. One method is thus described:—A piece of bark is taken in the hand, and hot ashes are thrown towards the point of the compass where the tribe is known to be encamped, and a song is sung, and all the birds of the air are required to carry the ashes, and to let them fall on the doomed man. The ashes cause the flesh to dry up, and the man withers and becomes as a dead tree. He is not able to move about, and at length he dies.
If it be wished by the tribe that any man of another tribe should be made sick and put in great pain, the Wer-raap makes a model in wood of that part of the body in which the pain is to be seated. The model is hung near a fire and made very hot, and the wild black a long way off by this means has that part made hot too, and he suffers accordingly. The singing of songs is never neglected in these practices.
And again there is another way of afflicting an enemy. Something belonging to the doomed man is secured. It may be a spear perhaps. It is broken or cut by a tomahawk into small pieces; the pieces are put into a bag, and the bag is hung near a fire. A song is sung; the Len-ba-moorr are implored to
