A number of such pointing instruments are constantly carried about by certain men of the tribe, whilst others are kept buried in places only known to a few. Often a stick is constructed just when the occasion requires one, and when there happens to be none available.
PLATE XXIII
Aluridja men “pointing” the bone.
“One man cowers upon the ground ... whilst the second, kneeling at the side of him, holds his pointing stick at arm’s length....”
Any fully initiated men may make use of a pointing-bone or stick, but when the grievance concerns the tribe in general, the operation is performed by the magician or medicine man. Women do not generally carry these sticks, but the Aluridja, and no doubt others also, allow their gins to charm their yam-sticks, with which they then “kill” their antagonists. A charmed yam-stick is believed to paralyse the arms of any person, whom it touches, when appealed to by the owner; consequently one of this kind is chosen for duelling whenever possible.
When a man has been condemned to death, the person or persons, who are to administer the fatal charm, are nominated. The “pointing” apparatus are produced, and with them the men take up a kneeling position a little distance away from the camp. Facing the doomed man’s habitation, they lift the bone, or stick, to shoulder height and point it at the victim. The long piece of hair-string, which is attached to the instrument, is tightly tied around the charmer’s arm, above the elbow. This is done to endow his system with the magic influence of the pointing-stick he is holding; and that magic, he believes, passes into the destructive words, which he is uttering: “May your skeleton become saturated with the foulness of my stick, so that your flesh will rot and its stench attract the grubs, which live in the ground, to come and devour it. May your bones turn to water and soak into the sand, so that your spirit may never know your whereabouts. May the wind shrivel your skin like a leaf before a fire, and your blood dry up like the mud in a clay-pan.”
There is a great number of different methods employed in administering the fatal charm of the pointing-stick, all of which, however, are after much the same principle. A common practice amongst the Aluridja is for the man, about to use the stick, to leave the camp and seclude himself behind a tree or other obstacle. He squats upon the heel of one foot which he has tucked under his body. He points the bone or stick straight at the man who is to die, or, it may be, merely in the direction he imagines he would strike him. Whilst administering the curse, he holds the object in the hand of his outstretched right arm.
Both the Arunndta and Aluridja often work in pairs after the following style: One man cowers upon the ground, with or without his pointing-stick in his hand, whilst the second, kneeling at the side of him, holds his pointing-stick at arm’s length over the former man’s back, and directs it towards the person who is about to receive the evil charm. Vide [Plate XXIII].
To make their charm more effective, and the death-penalty more certain, central Australian tribes not uncommonly tie the claws of a bird of prey, the eagle-hawk by preference, to the pointing instrument. It is believed that by this trick the evil magic works like the grip of a bird, by clutching the doomed one’s chest and crushing it. If by accident the unfortunate fellow becomes cognizant of this, and it happens that, as actually is frequently the case after a big feast, he suffers from indigestion, he naturally interprets the symptoms of his indisposition as being due to the invisible, tightening girth, which the charm has laid about him. The fatal termination arrives at a much earlier date in consequence.