Page:The Euahlayi Tribe.djvu/77

 Poison-stones are ground up finely and placed in the food of the person desired to be got rid of. These poison-stones are of two kinds, a yellowish-looking stone and a black one; they cause a lingering death. The small bones of the wrist of a dead person are also pounded up and put into food, in honey or water, as a poison.

One cure struck me as quaint. The patient may be lying down, when up will come one of the tribe, most likely a wirreenun with a big piece of bark. He strikes the ground with this all round the patient, making a great row; this is to frighten the sickness away.

What seems to me a somewhat peculiar ceremony is the reception a coming baby holds before its birth.

The baby is presumably about to be born. Its grandmother is there naturally, but the black baby declines to appear at the request of its grandmother, and, moreover, declines to come if even the voice of its grandmother is heard; so grannie has to be a silent spectator while some other woman tempts the baby into the world by descanting on the glories of it. First, perhaps, she will say:

'Come now, here's your auntie waiting to see you.'

'Here's your sister.'

'Here's your father's sister,' and so on through a whole list. Then she will say, as the relatives and friends do not seem a draw:

'Make haste, the bumble fruit is ripe. The guiebet flowers are blooming. The grass is waving high. The birds are all talking. And it is a beautiful place, hurry up and see for yourself.'

But it generally happens that the baby is too cute to be tempted, and an old woman has to produce what she calls a wi-mouyan—a clever stick—which she waves over the expectant mother, crooning a charm which brings forth the baby.

If any one nurses a patient and the patient dies, the nurse wears an armlet of opossum's hair called goomil, and a sort of fur boa called gurroo.