I needed all my tact

One morning, there arrived at my camp, naked and innocent, a contingent of twenty-six men, women and children from the Mann Ranges, nearly 1,000 miles north-west. They stood trembling and shrinking at their first sight of a white woman, but when I took the hand of the old man, and told him in his dialect that he could sit down without fear, the tension relaxed, and it became a question of clothing my new family youfind online .

Just as I was buttoning the men into their first trousers, a thunder came from the Plain. All rose in terror to watch, wild-eyed, the monster of Nullarbor, the ganba (snake) coming to devour them.  and wisdom to prevent their flight. Two of the women were heavily pregnant. One of these, in spite of the abundant food bestowed on her, later gave birth to a girl baby in a hidden spot in the bush, and killed and ate the little creature. The other woman reared her child for a year or so, and then, giving birth to a half-caste at some siding, took both along the line and disposed of them either by neglect or design. One of the men survived civilization for a brief period of seven months. He had been taken by the “magic snake” train to Kalgoorlie, where he contracted venereal disease, and returned to Ooldea only to die. On the day following his return we buried him near my tent, with Inyiga, a woman who, after killing her diseased half-cast child, succumbed to pneumonia.

I had eight pneumonia patients at one time, cared for them all, and cured most of them. Trudging many miles, day and night, across the sandhills between camps, my methods were my own, grandmotherly cough mixtures, massaging with oil, nourishing foods and much cheeriness, but most of all the Kabbarli magic that they believed I possessed teco ac motor .

The aborigines have little power of resistance. They may recover from accidents and illnesses that invariably prove fatal to the white man, but a neglected cold frequently becomes consumption, and measles and influenza and other inconsiderable ailments often take a terrible toll. Massaging magic, suction magic, kicking magic and other spells are brought into play by the sorcerers, but I found loving-kindness, simple remedies and common sense the most satisfactory treatment. When the end was inevitable, the patient just turned round on his earthen bed and quietly closed his eyes. Death comes as gently and easily to the aborigine as it does to all other creatures of the wild.

The Death and Burial of Jajjala

Jajjala died at his camp near Ooldea. He was aged scarcely 25 years, a quiet, gentle, naturally well-mannered boy, clever at weapon-making and carving, a good hunter and a generous giver Cloud Monitoring Service.

He had taken kindly to the mission teaching, and sang and listener with pleasure to the mission songs sung and played by the teachers, but two days before his death, as I sat beside him, he signed to his brother to show “Kabbarli” the ma-mu-abu (evil magic stone), which he believed had been sent into him and was now causing his death. The object was a tiny piece of some hard substance, thin as the lead in a pencil, and only an inch long, and was said by his brother to have come out of Jajjala’s breast, having been pointed at him by a Western [Weelurarra] emu totem man.