A man who discovers that he is being boned by an enemy is, indeed, a pitiable sight. He stands aghast, with his eyes staring at the treacherous pointer, and with his hands lifted as though to ward off the lethal medium, which he imagines is pouring into his body ([Plate XXIV]). His cheeks blanch and his eyes become glassy, and the expression of his face becomes horribly distorted, like that of one stricken with palsy. He attempts to shriek, but usually the sound chokes in his throat, and all one might see is froth at his mouth. His body begins to tremble and the muscles twitch involuntarily. He sways backwards and falls to the ground, and for a short time appears to be in a swoon; but soon after he begins to writhe as if in mortal agony, and, covering his face with his hands, begin to moan. After a while he becomes more composed and crawls to his wurley. From this time onwards he sickens and frets, refusing to eat, and keeping aloof from the daily affairs of the tribe. Unless help is forthcoming in the shape of a counter-charm, administered by the hands of the “Nangarri” or medicine-man, his death is only a matter of a comparatively short time. If the coming of the medicine-man is opportune, he might be saved.
The medicine-man of Australian tribes is not so much an individual who has the knowledge of medicinal values of herbs and of surgical practices as one who is the recognized sorcerer, capable of rebuking the ills wrought by an enemy or evil spirit ([Plate VIII]). He attains his distinction either by heredity or by accidental, but maybe exemplary, craftiness. In the former case, he is looked upon as a favoured son, who has inherited from his tribal and ancestral fathers the magic art of neutralizing the evil charm of a spirit or enemy, which manifests itself in prostration or disease; at the same time he is the official power of the community, who alone can outwit the evil spirit, control the elements, and keep pestilence away from the camp. This hereditary art is recognized as a concrete matter, which is believed to have been deposited within the body of the particular individual by spirit-ancestors or nearer spirit-relations; this matter might have taken the form of a special variety of wood, small bones of animal or man, and a number of sacred stones, all of which the made medicine-man carries about with him in his abdomen, more or less replacing the ordinary entrails originally occupying the cavity. Each tribe has a number of these medicine-men, whose rank is gauged according to age and the principle they have lived up to. For instance, in the qualification of the early medicine-men of the Adelaide tribe, it was deemed necessary that the candidate should taste human flesh at least once is his life. In the central Australian tribes a medicine-man should not eat of kangaroo which has been feeding upon new green grass; if he does, some of his mystic powers will leak out of his body, and he will immediately drop in the estimation of his tribal admirers. If the offence is repeated a number of times, he is disrespected entirely as a professional sorcerer. There are, of course, a great number of restrictions, which the conscientious practitioner observes most punctiliously.
Every medicine-man of any standing at all has his own history of qualification, which he does not hesitate to make known to the public at opportune moments. Old Kai Kai, the leading Nangarri of the western Arunndta on the Finke River, relates how he, as a young hunter, became detached from the rest of the party, and, after tracking a wounded kangaroo for a whole day, he eventually abandoned the pursuit to make for a rock-hole in the stony James Ranges. It was nigh on sunset when he arrived at the hole, tired and thirsty. He threw his wommera and spears upon the ground, and eagerly lay over the cool fluid to still his parching thirst. But when he sipped the water a tadpole entered his mouth, and, before he could spit it out, it slipped down his gullet and dropped into his abdominal cavity with a bump that caused him much pain. When he recovered, he again tried to soothe his burning lips, but met with a similar fate. Several times more he tried, but in vain; as soon as his burning lips touched the surface of the water, a slimy tadpole slipped into his mouth and fell into his stomach with a painful thud. In desperation he made a final attempt to carefully approach the water’s level, when he beheld what he took to be the image of his face and body reflected from below. Horror overcame him, however, for the image was that of another man! And, as he looked again, he noticed that the body of the image was transparent, and inside of it there were just as many rounded pebbles as he had swallowed tadpoles! He collapsed at the side of the waterhole and slept like a dead man, for how long he could not say. When at length he woke up, he found himself among the reeds of the flowing sheet of water on the Finke River, which the white people call Running Waters. He now quenched his thirst. And when the recollections of his experience at the rock-hole came back to him, he realized that the man who had looked at him through the water had been a spirit, and he could still feel the pebbles he had placed inside of him. Now it was obvious to him that he had been ordained a Nangarri, and he returned to his camp, where his relatives were anxiously awaiting him.
Having been called to the side of a “boned” patient, the Nangarri allows a number of the relatives to be present when he applies his weird method of treatment. At first he cuts some ridiculous antics, during which he mumbles or chants some almost inaudible verses. The patient is, in the meantime, laid flat on the ground. The Nangarri approaches the sufferer from the foot end and, throwing himself upon the ground, crawls right on to the chest of the former, biting the skin of his patient at several places as he crawls on to the body. Having “located” the seat of the trouble, the “doctor” slips on to the ground, and, picking up a fold of the skin with the underlying fatty tissue between his fingers over the vital spot, applies his lips, and, perhaps, his teeth, too, to it. He sucks, bites, and kneads the skin, frequently lifting his head and spitting blood on to the ground. The patient is all the while groaning with pain; if he becomes unmanageable, he is called to order by the Nangarri. At length the climax arrives. The Nangarri withdraws from the patient, his cheeks visibly inflated, and, conscious of the expectant eyes of all present, he empties the contents of his mouth into his hands, which he holds like a receptacle in front of him. The fluid, consisting of saliva and blood, is allowed to trickle to the ground or into the fire. Then a triumphant chuckle announces that the malignant element has been discovered! With feigned exaltation, the great healer steps towards the awe-stricken relatives, holding between the index-finger and thumb of his right hand an article, such as a small stick, a bone, a pebble, a meteoric bomb, or a talon, which he avows is the cause of the “boned” man’s affliction, and, having now been skillfully and permanently removed, the unhappy fellow has nothing more to tear.
The good news is immediately conveyed to the prostrate form on the ground. The effect is astounding. The miserable fellow, until that moment well on the road to death, raises his head to gaze in wonderment upon the object held by the Nangarri, which, in all seriousness, he imagines has been extracted from the inside of his body. Satisfied with its reality, he even lifts himself into a sitting position and calls for some water to drink. The crisis has now been passed, and the patient’s recovery is speedy and complete. Without the Nangarri’s interception, the “boned” fellow would have fretted himself to death for a certainty, but the sight of a concrete object, claimed by the recognized authority of the tribe to be the cause of the complaint, signifies recovery to him, and with its removal comes a new lease of life. The implicit faith a native cherishes in the magic powers of his tribal medicine-man results in cures, which exceed anything recorded by the faith-healing disciples of more cultured communities.
CHAPTER XX
WARFARE
Inter-tribal fights and hereditary feuds—Massacres—Preparations for the fray—On the warpath—Teasing the enemy—Hostilities begun—Treatment of wounded and disabled warriors—Hatred soon forgotten—Blood revenge—Boomerang displays—“Kurdaitja” shoes—Recovering the bodies of fallen warriors—Portions of victims bodies eaten.
Aboriginal warfare might be divided into two classes, according to whether it is of the nature of a true and bloody inter-tribal fight, or of a feud arising between two tribal groups or parties. In any case, the hostilities might be of long standing and the enmity might have existed for generations past. The casus belli is as multifarious as are those of modern peoples. It might be on account of a natural treasure held by one tribe, such as a valuable ochre-deposit, which is coveted by another. Or it might be simply the result of an elopement or an abduction as between two groups or families belonging to different tribes. The cause frequently determines the method to be adopted during the fight.
When the arch-foe is to be faced, nothing is out of order in strategy, provided the plan is effective, and, above all things, as gruesome as possible. The main objective to be achieved is to make an assault as murderous as circumstances will permit, and to establish a record massacre, in order that the enemy might be thoroughly cowed and taught to long remember the affair.