Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/412

386 cord and tied it above the knee, twitching it tighter with a stick. He then picked up a quartz pebble, cracked it in two, and with the sharp edge cut a circle right round the leg, severing the skin. Blood oozed out, and though the woman became drowsy and ill, she eventually recovered. The blackfellow was asked if he would cut the arm in the same way if the bite were on the wrist, and his answer was: 'Baal, me stupid fellow, too much blood run away!' The blacks have a thorough knowledge of what snakes are venomous and what harmless, but in either case when hunting always smash the head to a pulp before hanging the body round the neck to carry it."

The medicine-men Bubiberi of the Dalebura tribe professed to call down rain, and also to cure disease. They professed to be safe from harm, excepting from death. They have been seen to crunch up hot coals taken from fires of Gidyea wood, to show their immunity from fire."

The curative powers of the medicine-men were in some cases of a much higher order than those which I have recorded. The following account of the practice of a celebrated Bangul of the Jupagalk tribe is an instance of this, and was given to me by one of the men who were present, and I record it as nearly as possible in his own words. "A blackfellow was very ill, and at dusk the Bangal came to see him. At dark he went off for a time. By and by we saw a light afar off, and as it seemed to be above the tree-tops to the eastward, it looked at first like a star. Then it went round to the west, and kept coming nearer and nearer. At last we saw the Bangal walking along the ground carrying a piece of burning rag in his hand. His legs were covered with something like feathers, which could be seen by the firelight, and the people said that they were Bangals feathers. He sat down by the poor fellow, saying that he had been over to the Avoca River, where he found a man who had the rag tied on a yam-stick roasting it before a fire. He then rubbed the place where the man was sick, and sucked out some pieces of stone and glass. The man then soon got better."