[40] A less serious but even more effectual method of dispersing the natives, when they became troublesome, and would not quit the settlers’ camp at night, is mentioned by Mitchell. At a given signal, one of the Englishmen suddenly sallied forth wearing a gilt mask, and holding in his hand a blue light with which he fired a rocket. Two men concealed bellowed hideously through speaking-trumpets, while all the others shouted and discharged their fire-arms into the air. The man in the mask marched solemnly towards the astonished natives, who were seen through the gloom but for an instant, as they made their escape and disappeared for ever.—Mitchell’s Expeditions, vol. ii. p. 290.
[41] On a similar occasion, near the Darling, where the inhabitants are remarkable for their thievish habits, when a crow was shot, in order to scare them by its sudden death, the only result was, that, before the bird had reached the ground, one of them rushed forward at the top of his speed to seize it!—See Mitchell’s Expeditions, vol. i. p. 265.
[42] See Nehemiah viii. 14, 15.
[43] The men frequently indulge a great degree of indolence at the expense of the women, who are compelled to sit in their canoe, exposed to the fervour of a mid-day sun, hour after hour, chanting their little song, and inviting the fish beneath them to take their bait; for without a sufficient quantity to make a meal for their tyrants, who are lying asleep at their ease, they would meet but a rude reception on their landing.—Collins’ Account of Colony of New South Wales, p. 387.
[44] Playing at “stealing a wife” is a common game with the Australian children.
[45] These facts may account for the statement mentioned by Collins, of a native throwing himself in the way of a man who was about to shoot a crow, whence it was supposed that the bird was an object of worship, which notion is, however, contradicted by the common practice of eating crows, of which birds the natives are very fond.—See Collins’ Account of the Colony of New South Wales, p. 355.
Two young natives, to whom Mr. Oxley had given a tomahawk, discovered the broad arrow, with which it was marked on both sides, and which exactly resembles the print made by the foot of an emu. Probably the youths thought it a kobong, for they frequently pointed to it and to the emu skins which the party had with them.—See Oxley’s Journal, p. 172.
[46] The command in Deut. xxv. only extended to the case of eldest sons dying without children.
[47] The wild dog is also an object of chase, and its puppies are considered great dainties; but they are sometimes saved, in order to bring them up in a tame state, in which case they are taken by one of the elder females of the family, and actually reared up by her in all respects like one of her own children!
[48] It is a saying among the natives, “Where white man sit down, kangaroo go away.”