The neyi (elder brother) is the protector of the his ngatata (younger brother). For instance, if there is some trouble in the "fighting place" with a man, his elder brother hastens to it, and calls on the adversary to deal with him. Similarly when a pinya [avenging party] has judicially condemned some native to death, the penalty of death does not fall upon the offender, but on his eldest brother at that place. In the case referred to, a man with several companions came to a camp near Lake Hope. A man had lately died at Perigundi, from whence they came, and in order that they might be received by the people at Lake Hope, they halted twenty yards from the camp and there gathered the spears and boomerangs that were thrown at them ceremonially by one of the Lake Hope men, they being as usual easily warded off. Then going nearer, they again halted and warded off the weapons thrown, and again moved on, until, being close together, the man from Perigundi and the man from Lake Hope should have taken hold of each other, and sat down together. But the former, not taking heed of the position of the sun and being dazzled by its rays, was unable to ward off the spear thrown at him, which entered his breast, and he died in the night. His companions fled to Perigundi and there formed a pinya of a number of men, and returned to Lake Hope. The leader of this was a man called Mudla-kupa, who suddenly appearing one evening placed himself before him who had killed the Perigundi man, and seizing his hand announced his sentence of death. An elder brother of this man drew Mudla-kupa to one side, saying, "Don’t seize my ngatata, nor even me, for see, there sits our neyi; seize him." At the same time he threw a clod of earth in the direction in which the man was. Mudla-kupa now turned to him, seized him by the hand, and spoke the death sentence over him, which he received with stoical composure. Mudla-kupa led him to one side, when the second man of the pinya came up, and as Mudla-kupa held the man out to him as the accused, he struck him with a maru-wiri [two-handed boom-erang-shaped club] and split his head open. The whole pinya then fell upon him with spears and boomerangs. In order that they should not hear how he was being killed, the other men, women, and children in the camp made a great rustling with boughs and broken-off bushes.¹

¹Howittn/an/an/an/an/an/a, , 327–328. (The Macmillan Company. By permission).