Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/769

XII flattening of the child's nose by its mother to improve its appearance. This was done in the Yuin tribe, as I was informed, to make the children look nice; also in the Wiimbaio, and in the tribe about Maitland fifty years ago. It is possibly more common than one might have expected, showing that this marked feature of the aboriginal physiognomy is thought to be beautiful.

The practice of causing raised scars on the upper parts of the body seems to be universal in Australia, but among the exceptions to the practice was the Kurnai tribe. Before the occupation of Gippsland by the whites, the young men were not scarred, excepting a very few, who had met the Manero Brayerak and had followed their fashion of ornamentation. One of the earliest settlers in North Gippsland told me that when he first saw the blackfellows at Buchan (Bukkanmunji) they were bot scarred as was the Manero blackboy