tion after having
probably been reduced to a living skeleton from an indescribable
wasting sickness, which I suspect we spell funk.

The best way to make a gooweera effective is to tie on the end of it
some hair from the victim's head--a lock of hair being, in this country
of upside-downs, a hate token instead of one of love.

When the lock of hair method is chosen as a means of happy dispatch,
the process is carried out by a professional.

The hair is taken to the Boogahroo--a bag of hair and gooweeras--which
is kept by one or two powerful wirreenuns in a certain Minggah. The
wirreenun on receiving the hair asks to whom it belongs. Should it
belong to one of a tribe he is favourably disposed towards, he takes
the gooweera or hair, puts it in the bag, but never sings the I death
song' over it, nor does he warm it.

Should he, however, be indifferent, or ill-disposed towards the
individual or his tribe, he completes the process by going through the
form already given, or rather when there are two wirreenuns at the
Boogahroo, the receiver of the hair gives it to the other one, who
sings the death-song, warms the gooweera, and burns the hair. The
person from whose head the hair on the gooweera came, then by
sympathetic magic, at whatever distance he is, dies a sudden or
lingering death according to the incantation sung over the
poison-stick. Gooweeras need not necessarily be of wood; bone is
sometimes used, and in these latter days even iron.

Sometimes at a large meeting of the blacks the Boogahroo wirreenuns
bring the bag and produce from it various locks of hair, which the
owners or their relations recognise, claim, and recover. They find out,
from the wirreenun, who put them there; on gaining which knowledge a
tribal feud is declared--a regular vendetta, which lasts from generation
to generation.

If it be known that a man has stolen a lock of hair, he will be watched
and prevented from reaching the Boogahroo tree, if possible.

These gooweeras used to be a terrible 'nuisance to us on the station. A
really good working black boy would say he must leave, he was going to
die. On inquiry we would extract the information that some one was
pointing a gooweera at him.

Then sometimes the whole camp was upset; a strange black fellow had
arrived, and was said to have brought gooweeras. This reaching the
boss's ears, confiscation would result in order to restore peace of
mind in the camp. Before I left the station a g