Identifier: amongcannibalsac1889lumh (find matches)
Title: Among cannibals; an account of four years' travels in Australia and of camp life with the aborigines of Queensland;
Year: 1889 (1880s)
Authors: Lumholtz, Carl, 1851-1922 Anderson, Rasmus Björn, 1846-1936, tr
Subjects: Ethnology Natural history
Publisher: New York, C. Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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s. If you ask themquestions, they simply try to guess what answers you wouldlike, and then they give such responses as they think willplease you. This is the reason why so many have beendeceived by the savages, and this is the source of all theabsurd stories about the Australian blacks. Among the huts the camp fires were burning, and outsideof the camp it was dark as pitch, so that the figures of thenatives were drawn like silhouette pictures in fantastic groupsagainst the dark background. It amused me to make these visits, but my thoughts werechiefly occupied with the great event of the day. In thecamp there were several dingoes, and although the boongaryskin was carefully put away, I did not feel perfectly safe inregard to it. I therefore returned at once to look after mytreasure ; I stepped quickly into my hut, and thrust my handin among the leaves to see whether the skin was safe; butimagine my dismay when I found that it was gone. I was perfectly shocked. Who could have taken the
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XVIII A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT 229 skin ? I at once called the blacks, among whom the newsspread like wild-fire, and after looking for a short time oneof them came running with a torn skin, which he had foundoutside the camp. The whole head, a part of the tail andlegs, were eaten. It was my poor boongary skin that one ofthe dingoes had stolen and abused in this manner. I had nobetter place to put it, so I laid it back again in the samepart of the roof, and then, sad and dejected in spirits, Isauntered down to the natives again. Here every one tried to convince me that it was not hisdog that was the culprit. All the dogs were produced,and each owner kept striking his dogs belly to show thatit was empty, in his eagerness to prove its innocence.Finally a half-grown cur was produced. The owner laid iton its back, seized it by the belly once or twice, andexclaimed, Ammery, amine ry!—that is, Hungry, hungry!But his abuse of the dog soon acted as an emetic, andpresently a mass of skin-rag;

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