6 MEMOIES OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM. 



Thomas 6 amongst others .tells us that a great part of the medicine used 

 by the aboriginal is mere mummery, magical performances which at best act 

 through suggestion. To the lay aboriginal mind these magical performances are 

 the real thing, and, taught. as the native always has been to look upon them with 

 awe and mystery, he really believes in their efficacy ; but the medicine man 

 himself knows better, and although the power of the magical is strong upon 

 him, he is nevertheless aware that his whole power and status in the tribe has 

 been acquired through. trickery practised when required of him. No one knows 

 better than he the impotency of many of his own methods, which he dare not 

 betray except to the very few selected men, who .ultimately share his impostures 

 with him. 



One of the most universal practices amongst savages is that surrounding 

 the quartz crystal, which is put to all kinds of uses, and first and foremost repre- 

 sents the native medicine man's principal stock-in-trade. The sucking of a 

 stone or a piece of quartz from the wound of a patient — real or imaginary — 

 is usually accompanied with an amount of magic at the expense of the victim, 

 who is often made to suffer considerable punishment. (Coen Kiver and 

 elsewhere.) Even severe gashes are inflicted before the magic stone can be 

 brought to the surface, the victim never suspecting the fraud that has been 

 practised upon him. 



We have in the Queensland Museum collections three Avooden hardwood 

 points which are claimed to have been drawn from the head of a sick boy by a 

 native doctor (Glenormiston, N.W.C. Queensland). Q. M. Sp. No. QE 14/547.) 

 There is probably a connection between these and the wooden splinters referred 

 to by Roth 7 as characteristic of certain parts of the Peninsula. In connection 

 with these he says: " Sickness is brought about by some other boy putting a 

 wooden splinter or bone into the patient." Several such bundles of splinters, 

 said to have emanated from the now extinct Lankelly tribe, 8 are also in our 

 collection. (Q. M. Sp. No. QE 14/553 and 554.) One of these also contains 

 two wallaby metatarsals and are undoubtedly charms, though Roth states that 

 ' ' wooden splinters at the Coen are believed to be spear-points, ' * but even these 



,; N. W. Thomas, Natives of Australia, 1806, chapter 3, page 43. 



7 Roth, North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin 5, paragraph 137. 



8 The Lankelly tribe, probably an offshoot of the greater Nggeri-Kudi tribe, occupied 

 the territory along the banks of the Lankelly, a tributary of the Coen (Pennefather) River,. 

 Cape York Peninsula. 



* Roth, Bulletin 5, paragraphs 139 and 140. 



