PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 605 
Their corrobories and dances were attended by great numbers. 
At these meetings they raised large fires, and continued dancing 
till midnight. They first began with slow steps and soft tunes, 
then advanced more quickly, when their voices became more 
sharp and loud ; they then closed in upon the fire, and, keeping 
close to the flame, appeared in considerable peril. These move- 
ments they continued, shrieking and whooping, until thoroughly 
exhausted. The dances were various: the emu dance, repre- 
senting the motions of that bird; the horse dance (necessarily 
modern) was performed by their trotting after each other in a 
stooping posture, and holding the foremost by the loins; the 
thunder-and-lightning dance was merely stamping the ground. 
WIZARDS. 
No pretensions to any kind of witchcraft seem to have ever 
sprung up among these aborigines. The character of the tribe 
was stamped, with very slight varieties, on all the individuals of 
whom it was composed. In cases of sickness or violent pain 
relief was generally sought by bleeding the sufferer, which was 
effected by means of sharpened flint or crystals. No one claimed 
to be better qualified than another to administer a cure. The 
office of watching over the sick and dying was left to the women. 
Several diseases prevailed among the natives, especially rheuma- 
tism and inflammation, which were cured by gashes cut with 
crystal. A loathsome eruption, of the nature of leprosy, was 
relieved by wallowing in ashes; and the catarrh was often fatal. 
Snake-bite was treated by boring the wound with a charred peg, 
stufting it with fur, and then singeing to the level of the skin. As 
charms, thigh-bones were fastened on the head in a triangle. 
The sick were often deserted by the tribes, food being left within 
their reach. 
Two superstitious customs prevailed among them. One was 
an anxiety to possess themselves of a bone from the skull or the 
arms of their deceased relatives, which, sewn up in a piece of 
skin, they wore around their necks, confessedly as a charm against 
sickness or premature death. The other wasa fear of pronouncing 
the name by which a deceased friend was known, as if his shade 
might thus be offended. To introduce, for any purpose whatever, 
the name of any one of their deceased relatives, called up at once 
a frown of horror and indignation, from a fear that it would be 
followed by some dire calamity. 
DEATH. 
When a death occurred in a tribe they placed the body upright. 
in a hollow tree, and, having no fixed habitation, pursued their 
way. When a year or so had passed, they would return to the 
