Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/404

378. Having done this sufficiently, they piled a high mound of earth over the fire and drove a stake into the centre of it. This performance was to make the person or persons stupid and easily surprised.

A practice of evil magic much practised by the Kurnai is that of Bulk. This is a rounded and generally black pebble, which the medicine-man carried about and occasionally showed to people as a threat. One method of using it was to find the fresh excreta of the intended victim and to place the Bulk in it, the expected result being that he would receive the evil magic in his intestines and die. To touch it is thought to be highly injurious to any one but the owner. I have seen women and girls beside themselves with terror at an attempt to put one of these Bulk in their hands.

How a man might become possessed of a Bulk is seen from the account given to me by Tulaba as to how he obtained one. It was when he was gathering wild cattle for a settler on the Upper Mitchell River, and he dreamed one night that two Mrarts (ghosts) were standing by his camp fire. They were about to speak to him, or he to them (I now forget which), when he woke. They had vanished, but on looking at the place where they had stood he perceived a Bulk, which he kept and valued much.

A Bulk is believed to have the power of motion. For instance, Tankowillin and another man told me that the evening before they had seen a Bulk in the form of a bright spark of fire cross the roof of a house and disappear on the other side. Also that they had run round to catch it, but it had vanished.

I have now spoken of the manner in which the medicine-men, according to the beliefs of the aborigines, are accustomed to work ill upon them. It remains to show these men in a more favourable light, as alleviating suffering, and shielding their friends from the evil magic of others. One of the special functions of the medicine-man is to counteract the spells made by others.