Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/410

384 buried there had magically thrown a pebble into him, and the Koradji, after sucking the place, produced a small pebble as the cause of the mischief. In another case, this same Koradji extracted the pain from a boy's foot which had been burned, in the form of a piece of charcoal.

Among the Kamilaroi, who lived to the north of the last-named tribe, the Koradji was the medicine-man and doctor, and practised the same methods of sucking the part in pain as before described. But I have learned that these Koradjis also applied herbs as remedies, and treated snakebite by sucking and then rinsing out their mouths with water. They also used the "earth bath" as a cure for colds, which was effective, unless the patient were weak and died. In this treatment a hole was dug in moist earth, and the sick man or woman placed in it erect, and surrounded with earth to the waist. The patient was kept therein for four or five hours, and draughts of water were supplied, for this treatment causes great thirst, and the body sweats profusely. Usually the patient shouts with pain when in the earth bath. About fifteen miles from Yanga station, near Balranald, is a limestone cave at Talla Lake. A number of blacks of the Wathi-wathi tribe were here put in the ground alive and buried, all but their heads, as a cure for some disease, and great numbers died.

The sucking practice is also found in the Yualaroi and Bigambul tribes, the medicine-men in the former strengthening their magical practice by a plentiful application of saliva.

The Turrbal medicine-man cured wounds by filling his mouth with water, then sucking the wound and spitting the blood and water over the face of the wounded man. Some sicknesses were attributed to the evil magic of the medicine-men of other tribes, even as far distant as one hundred miles, who had, as they said, "caught" the person suffering, and cut him to pieces internally with a sharp stone. To extract this, the doctor filled his mouth with water and sucked the place in pain until he could squirt out of his mouth blood and water, he finally produced a sharp stone, ostensibly