BY JOHN MACPHERSON. 645 



(j^ofechis scntatiLs, Peters). The Ngarrabul natives used to cut 

 the skin at the site of the wound until it bled freely. Then all 

 the doctors sucked it. No ligature was applied. The Yukumbul 

 Blacks, however, in addition to sucking, applied above the wound 

 a ligature of the skin of Koohi, the opossum. The late Dr. 

 George Bennett, in his 'Gatherings of a Naturalist' (p. 275), 

 gives an account of the measures adopted by the Clarence River 

 natives in combating the effects of snake venom — scarification, 

 free bleeding, and keeping the patient running about until the 

 effects of the poison had passed away. The Ngarrabul Blacks 

 say that Bri-pryn, the Soldier Bird {Myzantha garrnla, Lath.), 

 finds snakes, proclaiming their presence b}' an outburst of noisy 

 clamour. 



In the olden days poisoned spears were in use. The men 

 covered them with the melted resin of the Grass Tree, Burr-hurr 

 {Xanthorrhoea sp.). They were then passed on to the women, 

 who alone knew how to impregnate them with the powerful 

 poison. A wound with such a spear was generally mortal unless 

 treated by a woman. Men were powerless to cope with such 

 cases. A Yukumbul female informed me that in her tribe spears 

 were poisoned with a substance obtained from the mountains. It 

 is related of the Narrinyeri tribes of South Australia that they 

 were wont to poison a kind of dagger by leaving it in a putrid 

 human corpse for some weeks, and then wrap up the point of the 

 dagger in some hair or feathers soaked in the fat of a decaying 

 corpse. This was termed Neilyeri or the poison revenge.* Poison 

 in any other form was quite unknown to the Narrinyeri. f An 

 old Ngarrabid tribesman, on the contrary, was in great dread of 

 poison, Mittie. He said the Inverell blacks (who obtained it 

 originally from Queensland) keep it in a small vessel. It is like 

 a scent, and is in use to the present day. If the possessor be at 

 enemity against anyone, his victim's fate is sealed. In his 



*Rev. Geo. Taplin in the ' Native Tribes of South Australia,' p. 29, et seq. 

 Mr. C. Hedley (Proc. Eoy. Soc. Qsld., v.) speaks of the Port Curtis Blacks 

 employing the milky juice of Exccecaria agallocha to poison their spears. 

 fTaplin, loc. cit. , p. 47. 



