One of the traditional tribal punishments is spearing where the victim gets speared into the thigh or calf. This type of punishment is often shown in Aboriginal movies. The crime determined what kind of wound the offender received.
The most serious form of payback (prior to invasion) was a revenge expedition that set out to kill the offender ritually. [1]
Aboriginal man Henry Long knows a thing or two about receiving a spearing.
"I got speared in the leg, too, for being cheeky. I got hit on the head, too, by all my old people. The spear came out of the calf of the leg. My old father did that. I was a cheeky bloke fighting the other fellas over some silly things I been doing in my young days. I was going with the wrong girls. My skin group is Milangka. I was with someone from a wrong skin group...
"After you've taken your punishment then people don't worry about you."
