TRIBAL NIGHT RAID

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18283, 29 December 1933, Page 11

TRIBAL NIGHT RAID

INCIDENT AT DARWIN PRIMITIVE INSTINCTS ... . , DARWIN, Dec. 20. .Reverting to their primitive) instincts, two “civilised” aborigines in Darwin this week murderously attacked another native who had broken a tribal law, and endeavored to cut out his kidney fat while he was alive.

Overcome by their desire to punish, the natives, who were employed as house-boys, made their attack in the heart of tho town, while returning from a picture show. 1 The headlights of a passing car picked out the struggling men on the footpath, and tho motorist jumped from his car to investigate. He intervened just in time. Already the assailants had felled their victim with a waddy, and had made a preliminary incision above the kidneys with a knife.

Not even tlie fear of tho police would make the victim tell who his assailants were.

Because the victim belonged to . tho [ierinken tribe of the Daly River, police believe that the instigators, if. not the •actual assailants, were two leaders- of •that tribe, who, ■ according to custom, would be responsible for seeing that any (tribal wrong was avenged. ;- Police suspicions rest on two houseboys who recently “went, bush” to. a big eoiTbboree at Talc Head, across the harbor from Darwin.

These two hoys were thought to he ■'as “civilised” as any natives in Darwin. .Both had worked for white people for nearly 15 years, and one was a former police hoy. Police are not surprised at the attempted outrage. They state their experience has shown that tho veneer of civilisation wears through a few. minutes after “civilised" boys rejoin their tribes. Though the victim would not state tho motive for the attack, it is believed it arose because he was guilty of a liaison with a lubra who was tabu to him, the tribal penalty for which is death.