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 netting the wallabies, a party of seven or eight men go in advance,
with each a net of from twenty to forty feet long, and when they arrive
near the runs, usually made use of by these animals, a favourable spot is
selected, and the nets set generally in a line and nearly together, each
native concealing himself near his own net. The women and children who,
in the mean time had been making a considerable circuit, now begin to
beat amongst the bushes with the wind, shouting and driving the wallabies
before them towards the nets, where they are caught and killed.
Other species of the wallabie burrow in the ground like rabbits, and are
dug out. The large rock-wallabies are speared by the natives creeping
upon them stealthily among the rugged rocks which they frequent, on the
summits of precipitous heights which have craggy or overhanging cliffs.
In making runs for taking the wallabie, the natives break the branches
from the bushes, and laying them one upon another, form, through the
scrubs, two lines of bush fence, diverging from an apex sometimes to the
extent of several miles, and having at intervals large angles formed by
the fence diverging. At the principal apex and at all the angles or
corners the bushes are tied up, and a hole in the fence left like the run
of a hare. At each of these a native is stationed with his bwirris, and
the women then beating up the country, from the base of the triangle
drive up the game, which finding themselves stopped by the bush fence on
either side, run along in search of an opening until the first angle
presents itself, when they try to escape by the run, and are knocked on
the head by the native guarding it.
Native companions and swans are sometimes speared or killed with bwirris;
the latter are also caught easily in the water holes or lakes when
moulting, as they are then unable to fly. Pelicans are caught in nets or
whilst asleep in the water, by natives wading in and seizing them by the
legs.
Wild dogs are speared, but young ones are often kept and tamed, to assist
in hunting, in which they are very useful. The wombat is driven to his
hole with dogs at night, and a fire being lighted inside, the mouth is
closed with stones and earth. The animal being by this means suffocated,
is dug out at convenience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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