When they have found a small family tribe to be attacked,
they try to stay near their camp in the evening.
Nothing having happened to cause apprehension during the day,
the family sits comparatively secure round the camp fire.
Early in the morning, before sunrise, a noise is suddenly
heard and the family wakes up in a fright.
The black man’s highly-wrought fancy always makes him imagine that
his enemies are far more numerous than they are in reality.
Each one tries to save his life as best he can; resistance
being out of the question, there is no gallant defence of
women and children.
Each one has to look after himself;
and it is generally worst for the old individuals, who are
killed and eaten.
A woman is as a rule splendid booty; if
she be young her life is generally spared, but if she be old
she is first ravished and then killed and eaten.
The natives of Northern Queensland and of many other
parts of Australia are cannibals.
My people never made
any secret of this, and in the evenings it was the leading topic
of their conversation, which finally both disgusted and irritated me.
The greatest delicacy known to the Australian
native is human flesh.
....
In Western Queensland, at Westlands station on Thompson
river, a woman belonging to a tribe of civilised blacks gave
birth to a so-called half-caste child— that is, the offspring of a
black m other and a white father. Such half-breeds are not
as a rule much liked, and are therefore usually killed by the
blacks who are in the first stages of civilisation. In this
instance the blacks had indeed been in long intercourse
with white people, and still the child was killed. It was
perm itted to live about three weeks, but one day one of the
men put his hand round its neck and held it up till it was
choked to death. Thereupon it was roasted on the fire and
distributed among those present, and eaten most greedily.
M any of the white people at the station were witnesses of
this event. It is not known whether the m other in this
instance ate any of the flesh of her child or not.
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