Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/406

380 The Tongaranka medicine-man, when about to practise his art, sits down on the windward side of his patient, and his power is supposed to pass to the sick person "like smoke." The doctor then sucks the affected part, and withdraws his power out of him, and also at the same time the pain, usually in the form of a quartz crystal.

One of the curative practices of the Wiimbaio was curiously associated with the offender. If, for instance, a man had nearly killed his wife in a paroxysm of rage, he was compelled to submit to bleeding. The woman was laid out at length on the ground in some convenient spot, and her husband's arms were each bound tightly above the elbow. The medicine-man opened the vein and the blood was allowed to flow over the prostrate body of the woman till the man felt faint.

The Wiimbaio medicine-man was called Mekigar, from Meki, "eye," or "to see," otherwise "one who sees," that is, sees the causes of maladies in people, and who could extract them from the sufferer, usually in the form of quartz crystals.

The extraction of pain by means of a cord tied to the sick person was also done by the Mekigar, The cord was made of his hair, and he rubbed it over his gums for a time. The blood thence resulting was believed to be from the patient, and the remedy seemed to give relief. For inflammatory affections of the lungs or bowels, the Mekigar laid the patient out and commenced to shampoo him, breathing and sucking over the affected part, and apparently extracting pieces of stone, bone, glass, as the cause, and as in other cases, often gave relief.

In one case in this tribe the Mekigar made use of a long slender reed, one end of which he placed on the spot in which the pain was, while he held the other in his mouth. After sucking some time he produced a piece of glass as the cause of the pain.

In such cases as these, if the patient was not benefited by the procedure, the Mekigar had the patient carried out of the camp, while his friends swept the ground after him with