Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/95

NGIA-NGIAMPE. curious sort of provision is made for it, the object of which may be the securing of perfectly trustworthy agents to transact the business of the tribes—agents who will not by collusion cheat their employers and enrich themselves. The way in which this provision is made is as follows: —When a man has a child born to him he preserves its umbilical cord by tying it up in the middle of a bunch of feathers. This is called a kalduke. He then gives this to the father of a child or children belonging to another tribe, and those children are thenceforth ngiangiampe to the child from whom the kalduke was procured, and that child is ngia-ngiampe to them. From that time none of the children of the man to whom the kalduke was given may speak to their ngia-ngiampe, or even touch or go near him; neither must he speak to them. I know several persons who are thus estranged from each other, and have often seen them in ludicrous anxiety to escape from touching or going near their ngia-ngiampe. When two individuals who are in this position with regard to each other have arrived at adult age, they become the agents through which their respective tribes carry on barter. For instance, a Mundoo blackfellow who had a ngia-ngiampe belonging to a tribe a little distance up the Murray would be supplied with the particular articles, such as baskets, mats or rugs, manufactured by the Mundoo tribes to carry to his ngia-ngiampe, who, in exchange, would send the things made by his tribe. Thus a blackfellow, Jack Hamilton, who was speared at a fight at Teringe, once had a ngia-ngiampe in the Mundoo tribe. While he lived on the Murray he sent spears and plongges, i.e., clubs, down to his agent of the Mundoo blacks, who was also supplied with mats and nets and rugs to send up to him, for the purpose of giving them in exchange to the tribe to which he belonged. The estrangement of the ngia-ngiampes seems to answer two purposes. It gives security to the tribes that there will be no collusion between their agents for their own private advantage, and also compels the two always to conduct the business through third parties. Sometimes two persons are made ngia-ngiampe to each other temporarily. This is done by dividing the kalduke