Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 02Eyre, Edward John
History
Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 02
Eyre, Edward John
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Ethnology -- Australia
In habit they are truly nomadic, seldom remaining many weeks in one
locality, and frequently not many days. The number travelling together
depends, in a great measure, upon the period of the year, and the
description of food that may be in season. If there is any particular
variety more abundant than another, or procurable only in certain
localities, the whole tribe generally congregate to partake of it. Should
this not be the case, then they are probably scattered over their
district in detached groups, or separate families.
At certain seasons of the year, usually in the spring or summer, when
food is most abundant, several tribes meet together in each other's
territory for the purpose of festivity or war, or to barter and exchange
such food, clothing, implements, weapons, or other commodities as they
respectively possess; or to assist in the initiatory ceremonies by which
young persons enter into the different grades of distinction amongst
them. The manner and formalities of meeting depend upon the cause for
which they assemble. If the tribes have been long apart, many deaths may
have occurred in the interim; and as the natives do not often admit that
the young or the strong can die from natural causes, they ascribe the
event to the agency of sorcery, employed by individuals of neighbouring
tribes. This must of course be expiated in some way when they meet, but
the satisfaction required is regulated by the desire of the injured tribe
to preserve amicable relations with the other, or the reverse.
The following is an account of a meeting which I witnessed, between the
natives of Moorunde (comprising portions of several of the neighbouring
tribes) and the Nar-wij-jerook, or Lake Bonney tribe, accompanied also by
many of their friends. This meeting had been pre-arranged, as meetings of
large bodies of natives never take place accidentally, for even when a
distant tribe approaches the territory of another unexpectedly,
messengers are always sent on in advance, to give the necessary warning.
The object of the meeting in question was to perform the initiatory
ceremonies upon a number of young men belonging to both of the tribes. In
the Murray district, when one tribe desires another to come from a
distance to perform these ceremonies, young men are sent off with
messages of invitation, carrying with them as their credentials, long
narrow news, made of string manufactured from the rush. These nets are
left with the tribe they are sent to, and brought back again when the
invitation is responded to.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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