52 



ItECOKDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



round and round until the required size is obtained; sometimes 

 emu-fesithers are worked into it. The completed blanket is said 

 to be very warm for sleeping under on cold nights. The rect- 

 angular variety is made from split Pandanus leaves also on the 

 chain-twist pattern, but woven from side to side, somewhat after 

 the style followed in the Pandanus colanders^ ^. All plaited 

 blankets are manufactured by the women. 



56. Bark Blankets.- — ^Sheets of soft tea-tree {Melaleuca) bark 

 are often to be found used as blankets in cold weather, in many 

 districts, and would appear to answer the purpose admirably. 

 On other occasions the inner bark of various Fig-trees, e.g., the 

 Ribbed-fig (Ficiis pleurocai-joa F.v.M.), Ficus ehretioides F.v.M., 

 undergoes special preparation before its conversion into a pliable 

 coverlet. At Atherton, some six or seven years ago, I had the 

 rare good fortune to l)e an eye-witness of the entire manufacture 

 of such a bark blanket. The individual who made it climbed a 

 Ficus pleurocarpa tree (the local kar-pi) to a height of som^ 

 forty feet and there removed a sheet of bark, the entire circum- 

 ference of the trunk. The removal was effected by transverse 

 cuts above and below, joined by a vertical one, and pounding 

 along its connecting edge as it was being picked off the tree ; in 



former times, he told me that this 

 > pounding was done with a stone. 

 ■ ■■ . ^ On regaining the ground he uncurled 



Fig. 30. the sheet so removed (fig. 30) which 



was now very moist on its inner 

 surface, and which measux'ed aljout 

 forty-two by twenty inches. He 

 next rolled it in its vertical length 

 (fig. Wa) with the external layer of 

 Fig. zob. the bark outside. Across its width, 

 about four or five inches from the 

 free end, he made an incision with the sharp edge of a broken 

 piece of Candle nut [Aleuriles vwluccana, Willd.) shell ; this 

 cut however only went through the thickness of the outer layer, 

 which thus formed a kink ^- 



(fig. 306), and so enabled , , \ 



him to obtain two free 

 edges to pick up and tear 

 off. The smaller piece of 

 outer baik he liad but little 

 difficulty in removing, the pjj,. 30c. 



larger taking some consider- 

 able time ; the sketches (fig. 30c, d) will serve to explain a couple 



5'' Roth— liiill. 7.— Sect. 52. ' 



Fig. 30a. 



Fig. 30rf. 



