[Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central Australia And Overland From Adelaide To King George’s Sound In The Years 1840-1 Volume 2. by Edward John Eyre]@TWC D-Link bookJournals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central Australia And Overland From Adelaide To King George’s Sound In The Years 1840-1 Volume 2. CHAPTER V 8/36
They have no objection to meet each other after the ceremony, nor do they decline speaking, but there is this peculiarity in their conduct that if one gives food, or any thing else to the other, it is either laid on the ground for him to take, or is given through the intervention of a third person, in the gentlest and mildest manner possible, whereas to another native it would be jerked, perhaps much in the same way that a bone is thrown to a dog.
There are other instances in which the names of natives are never allowed to be spoken, as those of a father or mother-in-law, of a son-in-law and some cases arising from a connection with each other's wives.
In speaking, therefore, of one another, or introducing persons to distant natives, a very round about way of describing them has often to be adopted, yet so intimately are neighbouring tribes acquainted with the peculiar relations subsisting between the members of each, that there is rarely any difficulty in comprehending who the individual is that is alluded to.
Among the Adelaide tribes, there is no circumstance but death that makes them unwilling to mention the name of any of their acquaintances, and this cause of unwillingness I believe extends equally all over the continent. The ceremony of tattooing is practised among the tribes of the Murray and its neighbourhood with great circumstantial variety.
Some are tattooed all over the back or breast in rows, some only one half of each or of one, some are only dotted, others have rings or semicircles round the upper part of the arms and some are tattooed on the belly, etc. Many tribes I have met with in different parts of Australia, have no tattooing at all, others are marked on the breast by singular looking scars, occupying a space of six or eight inches each way upon the chest, these are called "renditch" in the Murray dialect, and are made by fire; but I have never been able to obtain any satisfactory information respecting them.
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