mortiferous

Updated: July 20, 2026

To enable them to become sorcerers, certain rites must be undergone, which vary among the different tribes. Around Adelaide they have at one period to eat the flesh of young children, and at another that of an old man, but it does not appear that they partake more than once in their life of each kind. The latter, if burned to ashes in the fire, possesses mortiferous influence over enemies.

Edward John Eyre - Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 02

To enable them to become sorcerers, certain rites must be undergone, which vary among the different tribes. Around Adelaide they have at one period to eat the flesh of young children, and at another that of an old man, but it does not appear that they partake more than once in their life of each kind. The latter, if burned to ashes in the fire, possesses mortiferous influence over enemies.

Edward John Eyre - Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Complete