The south-eastern tribes used to select one or more men, who would be “dressed up” as emu after the style of the Kukata men playing emu described on [page 81]. In the case of the hunters, however, a real emu skin is usually employed, with the head attached and held erect by means of a stick, which passes through the neck. Very cleverly imitating the strut of the emu, the men carefully approach their prey, drawing their spears, which they firmly hold between two toes, along with them through the grass. Carefully and very slowly encircling the birds, the hunters gradually work towards the birds, when presently one or two of them are espied. The moment this happens, the curious emu rush towards the strangers ruffling their feathers and emitting peculiar guttural sounds. Now the critical moment has arrived because the hunters know that, when their faked plumage is recognized, the birds will decamp. They stand and lift their spears with their feet. The birds are now in all probability within throwing distance and very likely on the point of turning. That is the time selected for throwing the missile. Having previously selected their mark, the hunters, with a mighty flourish, let the weapons fly through the air with almost infallible accuracy. Then sounds the triumphant whoop; the men, discarding their disguise, rush towards the wounded victim and promptly put an end to it. In place of assuming the guise of an emu, the south-eastern tribes, when in grass-tree (Xanthorrhœa) country, cut the crown from a spreading tree and carry this as a cover.
The real chase, that is the hunting of larger animals, reptiles, and birds, is strictly the business of the men, although the children and women often employ themselves at digging out lizards, snakes, and the smaller marsupials.
Opossums are driven from their hiding places in the hollows of trees by smoking them out. A fire is lit at the bottom of a tree which is known to be hollow, to burn through the enclosing wall at one side. Then green twigs are thrown upon the flame to make as much smoke as possible, which works its way upwards through all the hollows and emerges wherever there is an opening. The half-stifled animals make for the openings and usually drop to the ground; if not they are brought to fall by spear or throwing stick. Often the greater half of the butt is thus burned through and the tree crashes to earth. In this case a diligent search of all the hollows and nooks is made in order that all things to eat, quite apart from the opossums, may be bagged.
PLATE XVIII
Two handfuls of witchedy grubs.
“The most popular and at the same time most widely distributed article of diet in the insect line is the larva of the big Cossus moth, commonly known as the witchedy grub.”
Often, too, notches are cut into the butt of the tree in step-like manner to allow the hunters to ascend for the purpose of chopping out their prey from the hollows. Whilst some are thus busying themselves aloft, others are waiting below in readiness to secure any which might attempt to escape.
Most of the burrowing marsupials, as well as the dingo and the imported rabbit, are dug out of the ground. The largest among these is the wombat, which is nocturnal in habit. The native knows, moreover, that when the weather is excessively hot, the animal often comes to the surface and sleeps in front of its burrow. He therefore stealthily surveys the recognized haunts of the wombat at such times, and, should he be successful in locating one, he spears it on the spot.
North of the Great Australian Bight the small wallaby is captured as follows: The hunter ties a bundle of feathers to the top of a long pole, up to twenty feet in length, and this he whirls around his head, high in the air, as he walks across the tussocky plains known to harbour the game they call “wilpa.” The wallabies, apparently taking the whizzing feathers to be an eagle hawk, squat in fear, and, for the moment, do not attempt to escape from the native. Before the animal recognizes the fraud, the treacherous spear of the hunter has pinned it to earth.