Page:The Euahlayi Tribe.djvu/90

 cross-like mark on the babies' foreheads, and white dabs on cheeks and chins.

And very careful are the mothers not to look at the full moon, nor let their babies do so; an attack of thrush would be the result.

Bahloo, too, has a spiteful way of punishing a woman who has the temerity to stare at him, by sending her the dreaded twins.

If babies do not sleep well their mothers get the red powdered stuff like pine pollen, from the joints of the Bingahwingul, or needlebush tree, and rub it on the babies' skulls and foreheads.

If the babies cry too much their mothers say evil spirits are in them, and must be smoked out. They make a smoke fire of Budtha twigs and hold the baby in the thick of the smoke. I have seen the mother of a fretful child of three or four years even, apply the smoke anodyne.

Whenever the mother of a young child woke in the night, if well up in her mother duties, she was supposed to warm her hands, and rub her baby's joints so that the child might grow lissome and a good shape, and she always saw that her baby's mouth was shut when the child was asleep lest an evilly disposed person should slip in a disease or evil-working spirit. For the same reason they will not let a baby lie on its back unless they cover its head.

If a gilah flies over the camp crying out as it passes, it is a sure sign of 'debbil debbil'; the child, to escape evil consequences, must be turned on to its left side.

If a gooloo, or magpie, did the same, the child had to be laid flat on her moobil—stomach: for the passing of a cawing crow, a child had to be laid on the right side.

As these birds are not night birds, it is evident that they are evil spirits abroad in bird form, hence the precautions. As soon as a baby begins to crawl, the mother finds a centipede, half cooks it, takes it from the fire, and