r to save
their skins from chapping.

But what is supposed to strengthen them more than anything, both
mentally and physically, is a small piece of the flesh of a dead
person, or before a body is put in a bark coffin a few incisions were
made in it; when it was coffined it was stood on end, and what drained
from the incisions was caught in small wirrees and drunk by the
mourners.

I fancy such cannibalism as has been in these tribes was not with a
view to satisfaction of appetite but to the incorporation of additional
strength. Either men or women are allowed to assist in this
particularly nauseating funeral rite, but not the young people.

Nor must their shadows fall across any one who has partaken of this
rite; should they do so some evil will befall them.

If the mother of a young child has not enough milk for its sustenance,
she is steamed over 'old man' saltbush, and hot twigs of it laid on her
breasts. To expedite the expulsion of the afterbirth, an old woman
presses the patient round the waist, gives her frequent drinks of cold
water, and sprinkles water over her. As soon as the afterbirth is
removed a steam is prepared. Two logs are laid horizontally, some
stones put in between them, then some fire, on top leaves of
eucalyptus, and water is then sprinkled over them. The patient stands
astride these logs, an opossum rug all over her, until she is well
steamed. After this she is able to walk about as if nothing unusual had
happened. Every night for about a month she has to lie on a steam bed
made of damped eucalyptus leaves. She is not allowed to return to the
general camp for about three months after the birth of her child.

Though perfectly well, she is considered unclean, and not allowed to
touch anything belonging to any one. Her food is brought to her by some
old woman. Were she to touch the food or food utensils of another they
would be considered unclean and unfit for use. Her camp is gailie--that
is, only for her; and she is goorerwon as soon as her child is born--a
woman unclean and apart. Immediately a' baby is born it is washed in
cold water.

Ghastly traditions the blacks have of the time when Dunnerh-Dunnerh,
the smallpox, decimated their ancestors. Enemies sent it in the winds,
which hung it on the trees, over the camps, whence it dropped on to its
victims. So terror-stricken were the tribes that, with few exceptions,
they did not stay to bury their dead; and because they did not do so,
flyin