hereabouts of the offending parties is
indicated by the direction of the smoke. The first unfortunates fallen
in with are generally watched until they encamp for the night; when they
are buried in sleep, the murderers steal quietly up until they are
within a yard or two of their victims, rush suddenly upon and butcher
them. On these occasions they always abstract the kidney-fat, and also
take off a piece of the skin of the thigh. These are carried home as
trophies, as the American Indians take the scalp. The murderers anoint
their bodies with the fat of their victims, thinking that by that
process the strength of the deceased enters into them. Sometimes it
happens that the _bucceening_ party come suddenly upon a man of a
strange tribe in a tree hunting opossums; he is immediately speared, and
left weltering in his blood at the foot of the tree. The relatives of
the murdered man at once proceed to retaliate; and thus a constant and
never-ending series of murders is always going on.... I do not mean to
assert that for every man that dies or is killed another is murdered;
for it often happens that the deceased has no sons or relatives who care
about avenging his death. At other times a _bucceening_ party will
return without having met with any one; then, again, they are sometimes
repelled by those they attack."[17]

[Sidenote: Belief of the natives of Western Australia in sorcery as a
cause of death. Beliefs of the tribes of Victoria and South Australia.]

Again, speaking of the tribes of Western Australia, Sir George Grey
tells us that "the natives do not allow that there is such a thing as a
death from natural causes; they believe, that were it not for murderers
or the malignity of sorcerers, they might live for ever; hence, when a
native dies from the effect of an accident, or from some natural cause,
they use a variety of superstitious ceremonies, to ascertain in what
direction the sorcerer lives, whose evil practices have brought about
the death of their relative; this point being satisfactorily settled by
friendly sorcerers, they then attach the crime to some individual, and
the funeral obsequies are scarcely concluded, ere they start to revenge
their supposed wrongs."[18] Again, speaking of the Watch-an-die tribe of
Western Australia, another writer tells us that they "possess the
comfortable assurance that nearly all diseases, and consequently deaths,
are caused by the enchantments of hostile tribes, and that were