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
A relative of Tenberry, one of the principal natives of the Murray, had
died when he was absent, and the son of the deceased was too young to
revenge the sorcery which it was imagined had caused his father's death,
it therefore became Tenberry's duty to do this upon the first occasion
that offered. I was with him when the parties first came into the
neighbourhood, and I witnessed the proceedings. Notice having been sent
by Tenberry the evening before, to warn them to be ready, I accompanied
him early in the morning towards the encampment of the natives, situated
in a hollow near the water; when within about a hundred yards we saw from
the rise all the natives seated below us in the valley. Tenberry now
halted, and having taken a hasty survey of the group hung down his head
upon his breast and raised a low mournful lamentation; after a time it
ceased, and the wail was at once replied to and continued by women's
voices in the camp: he now hastily went down to the camp still uttering
his lamentations, and the whole body rose at his approach, and formed a
large open circle around him. The natives who were supposed to have
caused the death of his friend, formed a part of the circle and were
armed with spears; behind them stood the orphan son of the deceased,
probably in the light of an accuser; and behind the son were the widows,
wailing and lamenting bitterly.
After taking the centre of the circle, Tenberry called for a spear, but
no one offered one, he therefore took a long one from a native in the
ring, who had evidently brought it for that purpose and yielded it
unresistingly. Pacing with this weapon furiously up and down the circle,
he advanced and retreated before the accused, brandishing the spear at
them, and alternately threatening and wailing. No one replied, but the
melancholy dirge was still kept up by the widows in the rear.
After sufficiently exciting himself in this manner for some time, he
advanced with uplifted spear, and successively repeating his blows
speared four or five persons among the accused natives in the left arm,
each of them pushing forward his arm unflinchingly for the blow as he
advanced upon them. Tenberry now again hung down his head and took up his
lamentation for a short time, after which he paced about rapidly,
vehemently haranguing, and violently gesticulating, and concluded by
ordering all the natives present to separate their camps, and each tribe
to make their own apart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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