Page:Aboriginesofvictoria01.djvu/214

132 wound, in many folds, a cord spun from the fur of the opossum, which forms a warm, soft, and elastic belt of an inch in thickness, in which are stuck his hatchet, his kiley or boomerang, and a short heavy stick to throw at the smaller animals. His hatchet is so ingeniously placed that the head of it rests exactly on the centre of his back, whilst its thin short handle descends along the back-bone. In his hand he carries his throwing-stick and several spears, headed in two or three different manners, so that they are equally adapted to war or the chase. A warm kangaroo-skin cloak completes his equipment in the southern portions of the continent; but I have never seen a native with a cloak anywhere to the north of 29° S. lat. These weapons, apparently so simple, are admirably adapted for the purposes they are intended to serve—the spear, when projected from the throwing-stick, forms as effectual a weapon as the bow and arrow, whilst at the same time it is much less liable to be injured, and it possesses over the bow and arrow the advantage of being useful to poke out kangaroo rats and opossums from hollow trees, to knock off gum from high branches, to pull down cones from the Banksia trees, and for many other purposes. The hatchet is used to cut up the larger kinds of game, and to make holes in the trees the owner is about to climb. The kiley is thrown into flights of wild-fowl and cockatoos, and with the Dow-uk, a short heavy stick, they knock over the smaller kinds of game much in the same manner that poachers do hares and rabbits in England. Thus equipped, the father of the family stalks forth, and at a respectful distance behind him follow the women; a long stick, the point of which has been hardened in the fire, is in each of their hands, a child or two fixed in their bags or upon their shoulders, and in the deep recesses of these mysterious bags they carry, moreover, sundry articles which constitute the wealth of the Australian savage—these are, however, worthy of a particular enumeration, as this will make plain the domestic economy of one of these barbarian housewives. The contents of a native woman's bag are:—A flat stone to pound roots with; earth to mix with the pounded roots; quartz for the purpose of making spears and knives; stones for hatchets; prepared cakes of gum to make and mend weapons and implements; kangaroo sinews to make spears and to sew with; needles made of the shin-bones of kangaroos, with which they sew their cloaks, bags, &c.; opossum hair to be spun into waist-belts; shavings of kangaroo skins to polish spears, &c.; the shell of a species of mussel to cut hair, &c., with; native knives; a native hatchet; pipeclay; red-ochre, or burnt clay; yellow-ochre; a piece of paper-bark to carry water in; waist-bands and spare ornaments; pieces of quartz which the native doctors have extracted from their patients, and thus cured them of diseases: these they preserve as carefully as Europeans do relics. Banksia cones (small ones), or pieces of a dry white species of fungus, to kindle fire with rapidly, and to convey it from place to place; grease, if they can procure it from a whale, or from any other source; the spare weapons of their husbands, or the pieces of wood from which these are to be manufactured; the roots, &c., which they have collected during the day. Skins not yet prepared for cloaks are generally carried between the bag and the back, so as to form a sort of cushion for the bag to rest on. In