Hitherto We Have Not Been Able To Trace Out The Cause
Of This Usage.
At first we supposed it to be peculiar to the married women,
or those who had borne children; but
This conclusion must have been erroneous,
as we have no right to believe that celibacy prevails in any instance,
and some of the oldest of the women are without this distinction;
and girls of a very tender age are marked by it.
On first setting foot in the country, we were inclined to hold the spears
of the natives very cheap. Fatal experience has, however, convinced us,
that the wound inflicted by this weapon is not a trivial one; and that
the skill of the Indians in throwing it, is far from despicable. Besides
more than a dozen convicts who have unaccountably disappeared, we know that
two, who were employed as rush cutters up the harbour, were
(from what cause we are yet ignorant) most dreadfully mangled and butchered
by the natives. A spear had passed entirely through the thickest part
of the body of one of them, though a very robust man, and the skull
of the other was beaten in. Their tools were taken away, but some provisions
which they had with them at the time of the murder, and their cloaths,
were left untouched. In addition to this misfortune, two more convicts,
who were peaceably engaged in picking of greens, on a spot very remote
from that where their comrades suffered, were unawares attacked by a party
of Indians, and before they could effect their escape, one of them was pierced
by a spear in the hip, after which they knocked him down, and plundered
his cloaths.
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