A medicine scarcely less efficacious than the doctor’s stone is human fat, which is carefully preserved, and administered by being rubbed in and around the affected part. As, however, it is highly valued by the warriors it is not easily procured, and, had it to be taken solely from the bodies of slain enemies, would in all probability never be used at all. The efficacy of this repulsive remedy does not depend on the individual from whom it is taken, that of a child or woman being quite as useful as that of a warrior.
According to Mr. G. T. Lloyd, the practice of deserting the helpless is found in Australia as well as in other countries, and is practised exactly as is the case in Africa. When a person is ill the relations, as a rule, do not trouble themselves to visit the sick person, and, when there is no apparent hope of recovery, a supply of food and firing enough to last them for several days is left near them, and they are then abandoned to their fate. Even in the case of poor old Tarmeenia, mentioned on page 747, the son, although he carried his wounded father more than four miles in order to place him in safety, never once came to see him.
Seeing that the natives place such implicit faith in the healing power of the doctor’s stone, it is natural that they should also believe in sundry charms as preservatives against disease and misfortune. One of these charms is a sort of girdle, several inches wide in the middle, and tapering to a mere thong at each end. If it be made of string prepared from the bulrush root, it is called Taara or Kuretti; and if made of human hair, it goes by the name Godlotti. It is used more as a curative than a preventive, and is mostly found among the tribes of the lower Murray River. The hair, when twisted into thread, is wound upon a curious spindle, consisting of two slender pieces of wood placed across each other at right angles.
Another charm is shown in the illustration No. 2, on the 765th page, slung round the neck of the boy. It is the beak of the black swan, which, from its scarlet color, contrasts well with the black skin of the wearer. The little boy’s name is Rimmilliperingery, and Mr. G. F. Angas remarks that he was an engaging little fellow, and had the largest and softest pair of dark eyes that could be imagined. The elder figure is that of a young man named Tyilkilli, belonging to the Parnkalla tribe of Port Lincoln. He has been selected as a favorable example of the Australian young man in good circumstances, well-fed, careless, and gay with the unthinking happiness of mere animal life, which finds a joy in the very fact of existence.
Among many of the tribes may be seen a strange sort of ornament, or rather utensil; namely, a drinking-cup made of a human skull. It is slung on cords and carried by them, and the owner takes it wherever he or she goes. These ghastly utensils are made from the skulls of the nearest and dearest relatives; and when an Australian mother dies, it is thought right that her daughter should form the skull of her mother into a drinking-vessel. The preparation is simple enough. The lower jaw is removed, the brains are extracted, and the whole of the skull thoroughly cleaned. A rope handle made of bulrush fibre is then attached to it, and it is considered fit for use. It is filled with water through the vertebral aperture, into which a wisp of grass is always stuffed, so as to prevent the water from being spilled.
Inconsistency is ever the attribute of savage minds. Although they consider that to convert the skull of a parent into a drinking vessel, and to carry it about with them, is an important branch of filial duty, they seem to have no very deep feelings on the subject. In fact, a native named Wooloo sold his mother’s skull for a small piece of tobacco. His mind was evidently not comprehensive enough to admit two ideas together, and the objective idea of present tobacco was evidently more powerful than the comparative abstraction of filial reverence.
Mr. Angas saw one which was carried by a little girl ten years of age. Like “Little Nell,” she was in attendance upon an old and infirm grandfather, and devoted her little life to him. In nothing was the difference of human customs shown more plainly than in the use of the mother’s skull as a drinking vessel—an act which we should consider as the acme of heathen brutality, but with these aborigines is held to be a duty owed by the child to the parent.
Perhaps my classical readers will remember a chapter in Herodotus which bears on this very subject. He finds fault with Cambyses for breaking into the temples of the Cabeiri, burning their idols, and so hurting the religious feelings of the people; and remarks that he was wary in offending against any religious sentiment, however absurd it might appear to himself. He then proceeds to tell an anecdote of Darius, who had at his court some “Indians called Callatians,” and some Greeks. He asked the Greeks (who always burned their dead, as the Hindoos do now), what bribe would induce them to eat the bodies of their dead parents, and they naturally replied that for no bribe could they perform so horrible a deed. Then, in the presence of the Greeks, he asked the Callatians, who ate their dead (as several savage nations do now), for what sum they would consent to burn the bodies of their dead. They, as it appears from the style of their answer, were even more shocked than the Greeks at the idea of such horrible sacrilege, and would not deign to give a direct answer, but begged Darius to “speak words of good omen.” (See Thalia, xxxvii. 8.)
A somewhat similar proceeding is narrated in the life of Nussir-er-deen, the late king of Oude. His native ministers, jealous of the influence exercised over him by some of his European friends, complained that the English guests treated the monarch with disrespect, by retaining their shoes in his royal presence. The king, who, enervated as he was by vanity, dissipation, self-indulgence, and flattery, was no fool, immediately proposed a compromise. “Listen to me, nawab; and you, general, listen to me. The King of England is my master, and these gentlemen would go into his presence with their shoes on. Shall they not come into mine, then? Do they come before me with their hats on? Answer me, your excellency.”
“They do not, your majesty.”