Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/272

 198 THE ENCOUNTER BAY TRIBE. The doctor sits in front of the patient with two sticks, one in each hand, beating the air; and the women beat upon kangaroo skins, rolled up, held between their knees. He pretends to have sucked out the seaweed from the patient; and if anyone should hint his having previously put it into his mouth he becomes indignant, and threatens to send it with the disease into his body. Some weeks ago I accompanied a man, whose eye was inflamed, to the doctor. The old man was sitting before his hut in company with some of his friends, with a large portion of cooked plants before him, which he appeared to enjoy very much. Having learned the purpose of our coming, and knowing that I would watch his movements, he sat for some time as if in silent contemplation, and then said in a low tone, "I am not able to suck to-day; I have eaten too much of this (pointing to the plants), and there is much wind upon my stomach—I will come to-morrow. " The next morning the doctor came, and after sucking the eye it became much better, which, doubtless, it would have been without his assistance. There is another man in the same tribe who cures a kind of large boils, which the natives are very subject to, by sucking out the matter and swallowing it, saying that it is his ngaitye (friend or protector). They have several different modes of disposing of the dead, depending upon the age and sex of the deceased. Children, stillborn, or that have been put to death immediately after birth, are burned. If a child dies a natural death, it is carefully packed up, and the mother or grandmother carries it about with her for several months, or a year; after which it is exposed upon a tree until the bones are completely cleaned, after which they are buried. Young and middle-aged persons are buried in the following manner: —As soon as the person is dead, the knees are drawn up towards the head, and the hands placed between the thighs. Two fires are kindled, and the corpse placed between them, so as to receive the heat of the fires and of the sun. After a few days the skin becomes loose, and is taken off. Such a corpse is then called grinkari. This custom may explain why