(Footnote.  Threlkeld’s Vocabulary page 88.)

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THE BOYL-YAS OR NATIVE SORCERERS.

I have already had occasion to mention incidentally, on more than one occasion, the Boyl-yas, or native sorcerers, and their supposed powers have a mighty influence upon the minds and actions of the natives of Western Australia, in whose superstitious belief the boyl-yas are objects of mysterious dread.  It is supposed that they can transport themselves through the air at pleasure, and can render themselves invisible to all but other boyl-yas.  If they have a dislike to a native they can kill him by stealing on him at night and consuming his flesh.  They enter him like pieces of quartz, and the pain they occasion is always felt.  Another boyl-ya has however the power of drawing them out and curing the affected person by certain processes of disenchantment.  When this operation is effected the boyl-yas are drawn out in the form of pieces of quartz, which are kept and considered as great curiosities by the natives.  All natural illnesses are attributed to these boyl-yas, or to the Wau-guls, hence the reason of some native being killed when another dies.  The individual dies either by the hands of another native, from the effects of accident, or from some natural cause.  In the first case his death is avenged on his murderer, or on some near relative of his; in either of the other two cases it is avenged on some connexion of the supposed boyl-yas against whom they have a spite.

KAIBER’S ACCOUNT OF THE BOYL-YAS.

Interested by an account I had received of the boyl-yas from the women, after Mulligo’s death, I endeavoured to obtain from Kaiber a more ample statement of their belief relative to these people.  The difficulty I laboured under upon this head, as well as the dread they entertain of these sorcerers, will be best shown by the following account of his answers to my questions, together with his incidental remarks:*

(Footnote.  His words were nearly as follows: 

Boyl-ya yongar boyl-ya gaduk.  Djerral, way-lo, wor-rar ngin noween; Boyl-ya windoo; boko-djee wattoo; boorda nganya men-dyke ngoomon.  Boyl-ya yongar boola ngan-noween, kalla moquoin, boorda ngin-nee nganya men-dyke ngoomon.  Boyl-ya donga gaduk, boorda gurrang ngoomon, nadjoo nginnee wangow broo.

Boyl ya kote yan-na, ngin-nee bid-jar, bal-goon kote yan-na; kote yool yannow boyl-ya.  Boyl-ya windoo-buk; boorda nganneel men-dyke ngoomon; nadjoo wanga-broo.  Goodjyte yool yannow.  Boyl-ya wunja nginnee?  Nganya goree katta mendyke.  Boorda nginnee nganya goodjall waingur; Yoongar nungow broo.  Boyl-ya bakkan broo kote ngan-now.  Ko-tdje ngannow broo.  Yel-line ngan-now (ngin-nee nganya yonga, nadjoo wattoo yan-na.) Boyl-ya yoongar bogal boola ngin-now.  Yoongar mendyke, boyl-ya wal-byne, wal-byne, wal-byne, etc. etc. boorda bar-rab-a-ra yoongar.)

The boyl-yas are natives who have the power of boyl-ya; they sit down to the northward, the eastward, and southward; the boyl-yas are very bad, they walk away there (pointing to the east).  I shall be very ill presently.