EEPOET FOE THE TEA.E 1900. 167 



Amongst the productions of our Continental Blacks, perhaps 

 the most noticeable objects are two " Dancing-boards," from the 

 neighbourhood of Boulder, Western Australia (Plate xxiii., fig. 2), 

 presented by Mr. W. D. Campbell, of the Geological Survey of 

 Western Australia. The lai-ger of these is a remarkable object, 

 being a flat hoard of hard dark wood, thirteen feet five inches long, 

 eight inches wide throughout, and with an average thickness of 

 half-an-inch. It is quite rigid and highly ornate. The sculpture is 

 characteristically West Australian, consisting of wide grooves, 

 transverse, longitudinal, or oblique, producing by their arrange- 

 ment a series of more or less rhomboid, roughly hexagonal, or 

 obliquely oblong figures. The grooving is more or less continuous 

 throughout, from figure to figure, the junction of any two grooves 

 from opposite directions forming a right-angle. According to the 

 angle at which the light strikes the surface, the figures and the 

 ground-work are in shadow or high-light. The ends of the board 

 are rounded, both surfaces flat, and the back gouged, after the 

 manner often seen on some old Boomerangs. 



Mr. Campbell, in the course of correspondence, informs me that 

 these boards vary in size from four feet long by three inches wide 

 up to the dimensions already given. They are used when an extra 

 important corroboree is held, in a dance which Mr. Campbell believes 

 is called Wabna, one kept very secret from women, accompanied by 

 a special song emphasising the latter fact. Of the small boards, 

 one is worn horizontally in front in the belt, and another is placed 

 upright along the back. The large board is called Oorloo-edma, 

 the first word meaning mysterious, and is held by a man at each 

 end, horizontally, with another individual beyond holding a smaller 

 board upright with one hand — or, sometimes a series of long boards 

 are used, a short distance one behind the other. All the tribes 

 inhabiting the interior, from Norseman northwards, use them, but 

 not the coast blacks. 



One of the subjects connected with Pacific Ethnology that has had 

 least attention paid to it, is the matter of Children's Toys. One 

 would hardly expect to find that the object represented by Plates 

 xxiv. and xxv. was of this nature. Such, however, I am informed 

 by Miss C. Robertson, who has presented it to the Trustees, to be 

 the case. It is a Child's Doll, ten inches high, three and a half 

 inches wide, and carved in stone, representing simply a human 

 head and face. The circumferential groove, eyes, and V-shaped 

 mouth show traces of blue colour, and the general surface of the 

 face and the nostrils was painted a light vermilion. Neither 

 hair nor ears are represented, but around the forehead margin is 

 a series of short blue radii. We already possessed one of these 

 faces at the time Miss Robertson presented the present example, 

 but I had always been at a loss to account for its use. Miss 

 Robertson's long residence at her father's (Rev. H. A. Robertson) 



