Jackie

You are correct - bone pointing and "singing" a person to death are mighty primitive. But please bear in mind we are talking about arguably the world's oldest civilisation - and if that constitutes "primitive" then so be it.

I've done a bit more research and it seems that bone pointing and singing are integral parts of the same punishment ceremony. The following are snippets I found on the web and, if you are really keen, there's an excellent url at the base of this post. It's well written and informative - sums up everything I've had to say about the original Australians in past posts. Please read it.

"When law was broken it was the elders who pointed the bone at the offender (s) or enemy who made the serious breach of the law. Often the bone was the arm of a dead elder, attached with hair at the end of it and sharpened to a fine point. Another effective punishment was 'singing' a person to death, pointing the bone at the offender to take away his life energies, and when he had the knowledge that he was sung, he would die unless there was a stronger magic."

and....

"In 1953 an aborigine named Kinjika was flown from his native Arnhem Land in Australia's Northern Territory to a hospital in Darwin, the territorial capital. He had not been injured or poisoned, was not suffering from any know disease, but he was dying. Kinjika survived for four days in great pain after entering the hospital, and on the fifth day he died, the victim of bone pointing, a method of execution or murder that leaves no trace and almost never fails. The dead man had been a member of the Mailli tribe and had broken one of its laws governing incestuous relationships. Following this he had been summoned before a tribal council, had refused to attend, and in his absence had been sentenced to death. Kinjinka then fled his homeland, and the tribal executioner, the 'mulunguwa', made and ritually "loaded" the killing bone, or kundela. The bone used maybe human, kangaroo, or emu, or it may be fashioned from wood. The design varies from tribe to tribe. Most are from six to nine inches long, pointed at one end, and shaved to a smooth roundness. At the other end a braid of hair is attached through a hole or with a resinous gum derived from the spinifex bush. To be effective, the kundela must be charged with powerful psychic energy, in a complex ritual that must be performed faultlessly. The process is kept secret from women and all who are not members of the tribe. if the condemned man has fled from his village, the loaded bone is given to the kurdaitcha, the tribe's ritual killers. The kurdaitcha take their name from the special slippers they wear when hunting a condemned man. These are woven from Cockatoo feathers and human hair and leave virtually no footprints. The hunters clothe themselves with Kangaroo hair, which they stick to their skin after first coating themselves with human blood, and they don masks of emu feathers. Usually operating in two's or three's, they are relentless and will pursue their quarry for years if necessary. When the hunters finally corner their man, they approach to within 15 feet or so, and one kurdaitcha, or "hit man", dropping to his knee, holds the bone in his fist and points it like a pistol. At this instant, the condemned man is said to be frozen with fear. The kurdaitcha thrusts the bone towards him and utters a brief, piercing chant. He and his fellow hunters then withdraw, leaving the pointed man to his own devices. When they return to their village, the kundela is ceremonially burned. The condemned man may live for several more days or weeks. But convinced of the kundela's fatal power, his relatives and members of any other tribe he may meet (who will certainly have heard that he has been pointed) treat him as though he were already dead. The ritual loading of the kundella creates a psychic counterpart of the bone a "Spear of thought" as it has been described which pierces the condemned man when the bone is pointed at him. Once he has been wounded, the victim's death is certain, as though an actual spear had been thrust though him.

The article is at: http://users.orac.net.au/~mhumphry/aborigin.html

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