thee,
Who having forced me thus to wed,
Now so oft deserts my bed.

Yang, yang, yang, yoh--

Oh where is he who won
My youthful heart,
Who oft used to bless,
And call me loved one:
You Weerang tore apart,
From his fond caress,
Her, whom you now desert and shun;
Out upon thee faithless one:
Oh may the Boyl-yas** bite and tear,
Her, whom you take your bed to share.

Yang, yang, yang, yoh--

Wherefore does she slumber
Upon thy breast,
Once again to-night,
Whilst I must number
Hours of sad unrest,
And broken plight.
Is it for this that I rebuke
Young men, who dare at me to look?
Whilst she, replete with arts and wiles,
Dishonours you and still beguiles.

(*Footnote. Boreang is the word for a male native dog.)

(**Footnote. Boyl-ya is the native name for a sorcerer.)

This attack upon her character was more than the younger female could be
expected to submit to, she therefore in return chanted:

Oh, you lying, artful one,
Wag away your dirty tongue,
I have watched your tell-tale eyes,
Beaming love without disguise:
I've seen young Imbat nod and wink,
Oftener perhaps than you may think.

What further she might have said I know not; but a blow upon the head
from her rival, which was given with the stick the women dig up the roots
with, brought on a general engagement, and the dispute was finally
settled by the husband beating several of his wives severely about the
head with a hammer.

The ferocity of the women when they are excited exceeds that of the men;
they deal dreadful blows at one another with their long sticks, and if
ever the husband is about to spear or beat one of his wives the others
are certain to set on her and treat her with great inhumanity.

CHANT EXCITING TO REVENGE.

The next translation is that of a chant sung by an old woman to incite
the men to avenge the death of a young man who died from a natural cause,
but whose death she attributed to witchcraft and sorcery; the natives,
who listened to her attentively, called her chanting goranween, or
abusing. She stood with her legs wide apart, waving her wanna, or long
digging stick in the air, and rocking her body to and fro, whilst her
kangaroo-skin cloak floated behind her in the wind. She was thus quite
the beau ideal of a witch. The following is the sense of the words she
used, at least as nearly as it is possible to express their force and
meaning in English.

The blear-eyed sorcerers of the north,
Their vile enchantments su