BY WALTER E. ROTH, M.R.C.S., B.A., OXON. 65 



skewer, was usually tucked ; otherwise this bunch was fastened 

 under the waist-belt at the loins. 



((') The belly-string or waist-band, nul-ban, or nul-band, 

 was formed similarly of a great length of red opossum twine, 

 coiled around so as to form a solid mass, quite 2h to 3 inches 

 wide, and ^ inch thick ; in this they carried their tomahawk 

 (kod-ja) behind, and their boomerang (kai-li) on the left side. 



Besides the nasal and cicatricial mutilations already re- 

 ferred to there was nothing worthy of note, no circumcision was 

 practised, though the latter rite was prevalent at the time up at 

 Champion Bay, some 300 miles to the northward. On the 

 other hand, the prepuce was always well forward with marked 

 crinkles at the extremity. Children up to five or six years of 

 age were often noticed to have what was apparently umbilical 

 hernia, but this deformity was never observed among the 

 adults. 



The striking of the skins or cloaks stretched across their 

 knees, either with sticks or with the hands, as well as the tin- 

 tinabulation of the yam-sticks hit crosswise over their heads^ 

 was the only primitive form of music noticeable. 



There were no canoes, or any signs of them. 



As a rule, these people lived in the open in this temperate^ 

 beautiful climate, though in wet, wintry weather they used 

 huts, and occasionally protected themselves from the violence of 

 blowing winds by means of " break winds." The huts were of 

 two varieties, according as they were built of grass-tree leaves, 

 or with bark, the choice of " timber " depending upon its tempo- 

 rary abundance or scarcity. When made of grass-tree — and 

 these were from five to six feet high, about four or five feet in 

 diameter, with a floor-level unaltered from the surrounding 

 ground-surface — some fourteen or fifteen peduncles were stuck 

 into the sand, at pretty well equal distances apart (except 

 where the entrance was subsequently to be), and fixed together 

 at their apices, so as to form a kind of cone-shaped scaffolding. 

 The grass-tree leaves — about eighteen inches long, and one six- 

 teenth of an inch thick — having been collected from the trees,, 

 and carried in the bend of the left elbow, were then dropped in 

 handfuls with the right hand into the sand, points downwards ; 

 each handful, it must be borne in mind, was not thrown verti- 

 cally, but at an angle. The whole row round having been com- 

 pleted, a second layer was commenced, but this time the 



