they were at war. When sent as an envoy to the enemies' camp, he might have to wait for a night to bring back a message from them. While there, he made a camp by himself, a little distance from their encampment. These heralds, being well known, did not need to carry any badge or emblem of office; but if a black was employed as a white man's messenger, the message was written on a piece of paper which was fastened in the end of a split stick. Carrying this before him, he might pass safely through an enemy's country, because he was seen to be the white man's messenger, and if any harm were done to him, the tribe of the white man would be very angry.[1]
As a curious parallel to this, I may mention that when returning from Cooper's Creek into the settlements of South Australia, a young man of the Yaurorka tribe, who had attached himself to me, accompanied my party to a stage beyond Blanch-water. To ensure him good treatment by any white man he might meet on his way through the settlements, I wrote a sort of passport which I folded up and put into the end of a stick. I explained to him what it was, and when he sorrowfully started on his long journey he carried the stick perpendicularly in his hand in front of himself, as a sort of talisman which would ensure safety.
In 1862 a messenger arrived at the blacks' camp at Ningy Gully station, on the Moonie River in Southern Queensland, bringing a message about the Boorool Bora or Big Bora. This is in the Wollaroi or Yualaroi country, the language being akin to the Kamilaroi. The messenger, one of the lesser Koradjis, approached the camp as the sun was sinking. The two oldest men in the camp met him, and made his fire. The message-stick which he carried was ornamented with paint and cockatoo down, and he himself was in war-paint, with feather head-dress. He came from the Bora ground, near the New South Wales border, where the Headmen were. He had also a bull-roarer, and that night, when there was a corrobboree, it was sounded. The same occurred at each station up the
- ↑ C. Naseby.
