The "Bad Country"
Such a tract of country is that lying along the coast between the La Trobe River and the Yarra River, and extending to the sources of those rivers. It therefore includes two tribes, the Kurnai and the Bunurong, and the knowledge of it extended from the latter to the tribes at least as far as Kilmore. In Gippsland it was called Wea-wuk or the "Bad Country," the Kulin tribes called it Marine-bek or the "Excellent Country." It was by this name that it was known to the Wurunjerri and the Jajaurung.
That part of the tract referred to, which is in Gippsland, belonged to the Brayaka and the Brataua clans. If a stranger, that is a man of one of the other Kurnai clans, came into it as a visitor, it was necessary that he should have some one to look after him. During his first visit, before he became, so to say, acclimatised, he did nothing for himself as to food, drinking-water, or lodging. He was painted with a band of white pipe-clay across the face below the eyes, and had to learn the Nulit language before going further. If his guardian went away from the camp, he deputed some one to take his place. He slept on a thick layer of leaves so that he should not touch the ground; he was fed with flesh-meat from the point of a burnt stick, and when he drank, it was water contained in a hollow piece of bark and stirred with a burnt stick.
The knowledge of the Marine-bek extended as far at least as the Bangerang and Wotjo. A Jajaurung gave the following account of the ceremonies connected with a visit to it. The visitor draws water out of a small hole made in the ground by his entertainers, and which they made muddy by stirring round with a stick. He was only allowed to take three mouthfuls at a time, each of which he must let slowly trickle down his throat. If he did otherwise, his throat would close up. He was fed with small pieces of roasted flesh put into his mouth on a pointed stick and removed by his teeth, not his lips.
