The white men had no idea that every fire that was lighted was a signal that was perfectly well understood by a force of armed men that was hovering about them under cover of the woods, nor that the little puffs of smoke which occasionally arose in the distance were answers to the signals made by their treacherous guests. When the spies thought that their hosts were lulled into security, they made the battle-signal, and brought down the whole force upon the unsuspecting whites.
The Australians are wonderfully clever actors. How well they can act honesty and practise theft has already been mentioned. They have also a way of appearing to be unarmed, and yet having weapons ready to hand. They will come out of the bush, with green boughs in their hands as signs of peace, advance for some distance, and ostentatiously throw down their spears and other weapons. They then advance again, apparently unarmed, but each man trailing a spear along the ground by means of his toes. As soon as they are within spear range, they pick up their weapons with their toes, which are nearly as flexible and useful as fingers, hurl them, and then retreat to the spot where they had grounded their weapons.
The Australians have a tenacious memory for injuries, and never lose a chance of reprisal. In 1849, some men belonging to the Badulega tribe had been spending two months on a friendly visit to the natives of Múralug. One of their hosts had married an Itálega woman, and two of the brothers were staying with her. The Badulegas happened to remember that several years before one of their own tribe had been insulted by an Itálega. So they killed the woman, and tried to kill her brothers also, but only succeeded in murdering one of them. They started at once for their home, taking the heads as proof of their victory, and thought that they had done a great and praiseworthy action.
A similar affair took place among some of the tribes of Port Essington. A Monobar native had been captured when thieving, and was imprisoned. He attempted to escape, and in so doing was shot by the sentinel on duty. By rights his family ought to have executed reprisals on a white man; but they did not venture on such a step, and accordingly picked out a native who was on good terms with the white man, and killed him. The friends of the murdered man immediately answered by killing a Monobar, and so the feud went on. In each case the victim was murdered while sleeping, a number of natives quietly surrounding him, and, after spearing him, beating him with their waddies into a shapeless mass.
Should the cause of the feud be the unexplained death of a man or woman, the duty of vengeance belongs to the most formidable male warrior of the family. On such occasions he will solemnly accept the office, adorn himself with the red war-paint, select his best weapons, and promise publicly not to return until he has killed a male of the inimical tribe. How pertinaciously the Australian will adhere to his bloody purpose may be seen from an anecdote related by Mr. Lloyd.
He was startled one night by the furious barking of his dogs. On taking a lantern he found lying on the ground an old black named Tarmeenia, covered with wounds inflicted by spears, and boomerangs, and waddies. He told his story in the strange broken English used by the natives. The gist of the story was, that he and his son were living in a hut, and the son had gone out to snare a bird for his father, who was ill. Presently a “bungilcarney coolie,” i. e. an enemy from another tribe, entered the hut and demanded, “Why did your son kill my wife? I shall kill his father.” Whereupon he drove his spear into the old man’s side, and was beating him to death, when he was disturbed by the return of his son. The young man, a singularly powerful native, knowing that his father would be certainly murdered outright if he remained in the hut, actually carried him more than four miles to Mr. Lloyd’s house, put him down in the yard, and left him.
A hut was at once erected close to the house, and Tarmeenia was installed and attended to. He was very grateful, but was uneasy in his mind, begging that the constable might visit his hut in his nightly rounds, “’cos same bungilcarney coolie cum agin, and dis time too much kill ’im Tarmeenia.” The alarm of the old man seemed rather absurd, considering the position of the hut, but it was fully justified. About three weeks after Tarmeenia had been placed in the hut, Mr. Lloyd was aroused at daybreak by a servant, who said that the old black fellow had been burned to death. Dead he certainly was, and on examining the body two fresh wounds were seen, one by a spear just over the heart, and the other a deep cut in the loins, through which the “bungilcarney” had torn the trophy of war.
Occasionally a man who has offended against some native law has to engage in a kind of a mimic warfare, but without the advantage of having weapons. Mr. Lloyd mentions a curious example of such an ordeal.
“The only instance I ever witnessed of corporeal punishment being inflicted—evidently, too, by some legal process—was upon the person of a fine sleek young black, who, having finished his morning’s repast, rose in a dignified manner, and, casting his rug from his shoulders, strode with Mohican stoicism to the appointed spot, divested of his shield, waddy, or other means of defence. Nor, when once placed, did he utter one word, or move a muscle of his graceful and well-moulded person, but with folded arms and defiant attitude awaited the fatal ordeal.
“A few minutes only elapsed when two equally agile savages, each armed with two spears and a boomerang, marched with stately gait to within sixty yards of the culprit. One weapon after another was hurled at the victim savage, with apparently fatal precision, but his quick eye and wonderful activity set them all at defiance, with the exception of the very last cast of a boomerang, which, taking an unusual course, severed a piece of flesh from the shoulder-blade, equal in size to a crown-piece, as if sliced with a razor, and thus finished the affair.”