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[Page 179]
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ABORIGINAL LIFE AND CHARACTER.
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There is a blackfellow on the Narran called among the whites "Peter," of whose power over his tribe the following example was told me, in 1871, by a squatter on the Barwan. A few weeks before my visit to Bundarbarina, two young men of the Narran River were condemned to death by the tribe for a violation of the marriage law, in taking women whose names marked them as not open to the choice of these men. The women who shared their crime were condemned to die also. But the two young men were in the service of squatters; and, as Peter wished to commend himself to the confidence and patronage of the white people, he resolved to save them. He therefore stood forward with his shield to meet the spears thrown at them by a number of the men of the tribe. The two women aided him in his defence; but the young men left him in the midst of the danger. Such were the skill and prowess of Peter that he came out unscathed. He warned the two cowards that if ever they offended again he would leave them to their fate.
Some time ago a blackfellow died on the Barwan, below Bourke; he was buried for two days. Then Tommy-Tommy and other blacks dug up the body, and skinned it. King Rory, who told me about it, though an old man, declared that he never heard of any other an being thus treated; he thought it was infamous. The wicked Tommy-Tommy keeps a bone of the dead man, and believes that he can kill any one by throwing this bone towards him.
A few years ago Rory being desirous to go with Mr. Sparke to the Races, was told that they could not go if it continued to rain; it was then raining heavily, with no prospect of fine weather. Rory cut bark here and there, and threw it on the ground, calling "pū-a! pū-a!" according to a custom he had learnt of his father. The rain ceased in time for him to go to the Races; and he told me that the blackfellows up in the Worrumbūl (Milky Way) had stopped the rain for him.
Rory was a young man, living on a plain 50 miles from the Barwan, when he first saw white men; he thought they were wunda (ghosts) ; he ran away when he first saw a horse. After that a white man came and lived a long time among the blacks; Rory made fishing-nets for him. This white man had very long hair and beard; he returned up the Namoi for Sydney.
Henry Rose, by birth Ippai Yuluma, the son of Murri and Kubbotha Yuluma, of the Pikumbul tribe, on the Macintyre River (in Queensland, near the border of this Colony), has been twenty-five years in the service of Mr. Christian, on Liverpool Plains, and a good trustworthy servant he has proved himself. This man told me that, when he was a very little boy, some of his tribe having committed robbery, the black police were