Corrobborees are really the books of a tribe, for they have no others. They are not just dancing picnics, as some people think, but lessons, and very hard lessons too, sometimes.
The old men are the teachers, and the Head Man is the Head Master. They teach the young men all they should know—how to point “death-bones,” the best way to “sing” people dead, the way to scare Debbil-debbils away with bull roarers and sacred stones, all the laws about marriage, the proper things to eat, how to make rain, and I can’t tell what else.
The man who proves in a great many ways that he understands all he should, will one day be King and Head Master. A black king is not king because his father was so.
As I listened to Goggle Eye’s explanation of all this, I thought how necessary it was to have a wise king, since he has the care of the special “death-bones,” and “pointing-sticks,” and all the sacred charms. No one knows what terrible things might happen to the tribe if any one touched these magic charms who did not know how to use them. Why, he might set a death-bone working, and not be able to stop it till everybody was dead, or make a mistake and invite Debbil-debbils to come and chivvy everybody about, when he was meaning to tell them to stay away. It really is too fearful to think what might happen with a foolish king!
When Goggle Eye stopped talking, I asked him what the peculiar marks on his shoulder meant.
“What name this one talk, Goggle Eye?” I said, touching it with my finger.
He was just trying to decide whether it would be all right to tell a white woman what a black lubra must not hear, when a wretched little Willy-Waggletail flew into the verandah after spiders.
No blackfellow will talk secrets with one of these little birds about. They say they are the tell-tales of the bush, and are always spying about, listening for bits of gossip to make mischief. They call them “Jenning-gherries,” or mischief-makers, and say that they love mischief of all kinds.
“Jenning-gherrie come on,” said Goggle Eye, pointing to the little flitting, flirting bird, and I knew I should hear no more that day.
“Very well,” I said, and giving him a stick of “chewbac,” sent him back to his camp, and called Bett-Bett.