Page:Dawson - Australian aborigines (1900).djvu/24



The aborigines are very fond of anointing their bodies and their hair with the fat of animals, and toasting themselves before the fire till their skin absorbs it. In order to protect their bodies from the cold, they mix red clay with the oily fat of emus, — which is considered the best, — or with that of water fowls, opossums, grubs, or toasted eel skins, and rub themselves all over with the mixture. Owing to this custom very little clothing is necessary. During all seasons of the year both sexes walk about very scantily clothed. In warm weather the men wear no covering during the day time except a short apron, not unlike the sporran of the Scotch Highlanders, formed of strips of opossum skins with the fur on, hanging from a skin belt in two bunches, one in front and the other behind. In winter they add a large kangaroo skin, fur side inwards, which hangs over the shoulders and down the back like a mantle or short cloak. This skin is fastened round the neck by the hind legs, and is fixed with a pin made of the small bone of the hind leg of a kangaroo, ground to a fine point. Sometimes a small rug made of a dozen skins of the opossum or young kangaroo is worn in the same way. Women use the opossum rug at all times, by day as a covering for the back and shoulders, and in cold nights as a blanket. When they are obliged to go out of doors in wet weather, a kangaroo skin is substituted for the rug. A girdle or short kilt of the neck feathers of the emu, tied in little bunches to a skin cord, is fastened round the loins. A band of plaited bark surrounds the head, and pointed pins, made of wood or of the small bones of the hind foot of the kangaroo, are stuck upright at each side of the brow, to keep up the hair, which is divided in front and laid over them. Beds are made of dry grass laid on the ground; and in summer the body is covered with a thin grass mat, or a sprinkling of loose dry grass, but in cold weather a wallaby or opossum rug is used in addition. In rare instances the rug is made of skins of the ring-tailed opossum.