Page:Aboriginesofvictoria01.djvu/433

Rh Eyre refers to the use of skulls as drinking cups. The sutures are closed with wax or gum.

The vessel used by the natives of Gippsland for holding water for domestic purposes is made of bark, and the ends are tied exactly in the same way as they tie the ends of a canoe. This vessel is called Gil-ang. The Murray blacks use a vessel of wood like the Tarnuk proper, and the name they give it is Karr-a-ki.

Mr. Nathaniel Munro says that in some parts shells are used for drinking vessels, where they can be procured large enough for the purpose; but vessels for holding water are generally made of green bark. Pieces are cut into various shapes, laid on the fire or in hot ashes until they are soft and the edges begin to contract, and then they are easily wrought into the forms desired by the natives. When the bark is heated, it can be drawn into many shapes without breaking it or causing it to crack.

The mussel-shell—U-born—is much used by the natives for the purpose of scraping and preparing skins for bags, opossum rugs, &c. It is a valuable tool. It is used ordinarily as it is taken from the living animal; but if a favorite and well-shaped shell becomes a little blunted by use, it is sharpened with a stone. When the whites introduced their manufactures, the natives eagerly seized on the worn-out iron spoons, which they found near their huts, and converted the bowls into tools which served them better for scraping skins than the mussel; but some of the old blacks even now use the mussel.

The tool with which the natives used to ornament their wooden shields and other weapons is called Leange-walert. The lower-jaw of the opossum is firmly attached to a piece of wood (which serves as a handle) by twine made of the fibre of the bark of Eucalyptus obliqua and gum. This tool, simple as it is, enables the black to carve patterns in the hard, tough woods of which his weapons are made with ease and rapidity. The front tooth is like a gouge or chisel, and with it he scoops or cuts out the wood with great facility. The old weapons are easily known by the marks made by the tooth; those fabricated since the introduction of knives and other European tools are altogether different in the surfaces which they present, though the patterns may be the same. The instrument shown in Fig. 164 was made by Wonga, the principal man of the Yarra tribe, and was used by him in ornamenting weapons.