g even from the dying, a curse was laid on them that some day the
plague would return, brought back by the Wundah or white devils; and
the blacks shudder still, though it was generations before them, at the
thought that such a horror may come again.

Poison-stones are ground up finely and placed in the food of the person
desired to be got rid of. These poison-stones are of two kinds, a
yellowish-looking stone and a black one; they cause a lingering death.
The small bones of the wrist of a dead person are also pounded up and
put into food, in honey or water, as a poison.

One cure struck me as quaint. The patient may be lying down, when up
will come one of the tribe, most likely a wirreenun with a big piece of
bark. He strikes the ground with this all round the patient, making a
great row; this is to frighten the sickness away.

What seems to me a somewhat peculiar ceremony is the reception a coming
baby holds before its birth.

The baby is presumably about to be born. Its grandmother is there
naturally, but the black baby declines to appear at the request of its
grandmother, and, moreover, declines to come if even the voice of its
grandmother is heard; so grannie has to be a silent spectator while
some other woman tempts the baby into the world by descanting on the
glories of it. First, perhaps, she will say:

'Come now, here's your auntie waiting to see you.'

'Here's your sister.'

'Here's your father's sister,' and so on through a whole list. Then she
will say, as the relatives and friends do not seem a draw:

'Make haste, the bumble fruit is ripe. The guiebet flowers are
blooming. The grass is waving high. The birds are all talking. And it
is a beautiful place, hurry up and see for yourself.'

But it generally happens that the baby is too cute to be tempted, and
an old woman has to produce what she calls a wi-mouyan--a clever
stick--which she waves over the expectant mother, crooning a charm which
brings forth the baby.

If any one nurses a patient and the patient dies, the nurse wears an
armlet of opossum's hair called goomil, and a sort of fur boa called
gurroo.

If blacks go visiting, when they leave they make a smoke fire and smoke
themselves, so that they may not carry home any disease.

As a rule blacks do not have small feet, but their hands are almost
invariably small and well shaped, having tapering fingers.

CHAPTER VI

OUR WITCH WOMAN

Our witch woman was rather a remarkable old