114 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS—SECTION F. 
stick, the blunt ends being fixed into a mass of resin, to which a 
hair string is attached, and the whole implement is coated with 
grease and charcoal, the latter being in many places especially 
associated with magic. The two men stand facing one another ; 
one holds the end of the string, while the second grasps the 
resinous half in both hands, and, stooping down, points and 
jerks the implement between his legs in the direction of the 
man whom it is desired to harm, muttering curses all the time. 
In another form there are a number of small pointing sticks 
attached to a strand of fur string, at the opposite end of which 
are one or two eaglehawk claws. After the usual pointing, 
jerking, and muttering of curses have been gone through, the 
man pinches up in front of him a little ridge of earth, perhaps, 
an inch or two high; if this were not done, the victim would 
probably dream of the place at which the operator’s mother 
camped in the Alcherina, and would then know at once who 
his enemy was. The eaglehawk claws are supposed to grip the 
internal organs of the victim, and to cause great pain. In some 
cases medicine men are supposed to assume the form of eagle- 
hawks, and during night time to travel long distances visiting 
strange camps, where they cause much trouble by digging 
their claws into men. It requires a distinguished medicine man 
to extract one of these claws, but it can be done. 
To produce particular diseases the natives have special forms 
of magic. For example, long ago in the Alcheringa there lived 
a man named Uneutnika, afflicted, ike Job, with boils, but 
when he could bear them no longer he plucked them out, and 
threw them from him, each one turning into a stone, in evidence 
of which the stones may be seen at the present day by anyone 
who visits a sacred spot called Undiara. They are called “ aperta 
tukira,” that is, the “stone boils.” If a man desires to afflict 
anyone with boils he makes some small toy spears, and throws 
them at these stones, which part with some of their virtue to the 
spears, the latter in consequence becoming, as it were, charged 
with evil magic. The spears are then thrown one by one in the 
direction of the man whom it is desired to injure. If a man 
wishes someone to become emaciated all that he has to do is 
to go and rub a particular stone, which arose to mark the spot 
at which in the Alcheringa an emaciated emu died, the stone in 
consequence being full of that form of Arungquiltha which pro- 
duces emaciation. 
There are numberless ways in which a man may use evil magic, 
but while he does so he must remember that it is a game at 
which two can play, and, further still, if he have at all the 
reputation of being too fond of magic, he is quite sure sooner 
or later to be indicated by a medicine man as causing the death 
of some individual. Every death is the result of evil magic, 
