Tribal fights.

Before coming to blows two hostile tribes will encamp perhaps for a clay or two within talking or shouting distance, generally on opposite sides of a watercourse. The women and children are kept in the background, but are ready to join in so far as the yelling and screaming is concerned. The men keep up an incessant talk during this time; many of them taking it in turn to walk up and down in an excited manner before their respective friends, apparently boasting of what they intend to do, or endeavouring to inspire them with courage, every now and then spitting and brandishing his spear towards their opponents. Occasionally they fasten a small piece of grass-tree gum to the end of a boomerang, and lighting it, throw it over the heads of their opponents. This is considered a great insult. When sufficiently excited, they rise simultaueously, and rush towards each other, throwing their spears. These for the most part are warded off. When the spears are exhausted they come to close quarters with their waddies; but the fight generally winds up by a good set-to between two warriors who, no doubt, were the originators of the quarrel. These come to close quarters, and with their waddies, deal each other fearful blows upon the head, occasionally varying the performance with a dig in the ribs. They manage to catch the blow upon the knot of hair, or ward it off with a stout piece of wood about 15 inches long, narrowed at each end, and pierced in the middle for a handle. The battle is considered over when one of these warriors falls.

These fights, owing to their extraordinary dexterity in warding off spears, are not so fatal as one would imagine; many wounds are given, some of them occasionally proving fatal. In some parts the blacks use a small knife formed by inserting a sharp piece of quartz or flint into a cleft stick. They use these in a backhanded manner, and inflict horrible-looking wounds with them. The shoulders of some of the men I saw looked like a scored leg of roast pork, though the cuts were not so regularly made. They seize each other by the left hand, mostly by the hair, and score each other's shoulders, the cuts often cutting deeply into the flesh of the arm. Flies and mosquitoes are ever troublesome, and these wounds attract the former in numbers, so that every black carries a wisp of grass which they use incessantly to drive these pests away.