36 THE TENDI. of foul play. I cannot give the natives credit for much order in their method of conducting business. There was a tremendous amount of talk. Sometimes one would speak, then half-a-dozen would all speak together in an excited and vociferous manner, then some friend would interject an exclamation. I could not make out the drift of the discussion. If it had been English it would have been bad enough, but in Native it was incomprehensible. I afterwards heard that the tendi broke up without any decision being arrived at. I was told by a very trustworthy native a remarkable circumstance connected with the tendi, and the ideas of these people on the subject: "An old man, the uncle of my informant, who was then a boy about ten years old, was very ill. This was some thirtyfive years ago, and before the clan to which he belonged had any intercourse at all with Europeans. During the old man’s illness he was assiduously attended by his friends, for he was much beloved. His nephew was continually at his bedside. At last death was manifestly approaching, and the sufferer was being supported in the arms of his friends, who expected every minute to be his last. As he lay there he pointed upwards to heaven and said in the Potauwallin dialect, ’Tand an amb Kiathangk waiithamb,’* which is to say, ’My tendior judgmentis up there.’ It was a remarkable recognition of a judgment to come, by one in heathen darkness. My informant, who is a believer in Jesus, said the words of the old man ever after stuck in his memory. He also said it was not uncommon to hear the aged men say that there was a tendi in the heavens for the spirits of those who died." I am rather sorry that the tendi is not so potent as it used to be amongst the natives. It is still resorted to as an excellent means of discussing and disposing of difficulties, but its penalties cannot always be carried out. I have no doubt that men of the Narrinyeri have suffered imprisonment at the hands of the whites for carrying out the sentence of the tendi in cases where it awarded substantial justice against offenders.
- This in the Point Malcolm dialect would be "Tand in amb kerau
waiirrangk."
