Next day Tommy Dod started on a journey to try and find out, by different magic signs, who had “sung” his brother, so that he could “sing” them in revenge. That was his duty, you know. As far as I could find out, somebody was always looking for somebody else, in order to “sing” him. If Tommy found the murderer he would “sing” him, and if the murderer died his relatives would all “sing” Tommy, and then Tommy’s relatives would “sing” the murderer’s relatives, and that is how it goes on, till the wonder is that anybody is left alive.
Nobody ever mentioned Goggle Eye’s name again. It really didn’t matter, but it was just as well not to do so, because if he heard his name he might think some one was calling him, and come to see.
When they needed to speak of him, they gave his name in the sign language. To do this, they crooked up all their fingers till their hand looked like a bird’s claw, and then suddenly jerked it forward, and that meant—
“Ebimel Wooloomool Neckberrie,” or “Goggle Eye the Deadfellow!”
Chapter 13
Bett-Bett Is “Bush-Hungry”
For some days Bett-Bett had wandered about in an aimless, listless way, doing nothing and saying nothing, but just looking “out bush” with big dreamy eyes.
She did not know what had happened to her, but I, who had seen this many times in her people, knew.
She was homesick—“bush hungry”—hungry for her own ways, and her own people; for the bush talks, and the camps, and the long long wanderings from place to place, for the fear of Debbil-debbils, for anything that would make her a little bush nigger once more, for anything—if only she could shake off the white man for a little while, and do nothing but live.
We whites sometimes grow very weary and “bush hungry” when we are taken away to the towns, but we can never even guess at the pain of a blackfellow’s longing for his own people, and his beloved “bush.”