500 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 
surface like the saurian he is supposed to represent, and 
expose himself to similar treatment. 
(h) In the N.W.-Central districts, a whole party will be 
bathing together in the river, and while some may be imi- 
tating the actions and “calls” of various water-birds, others 
will hunt for and try to catch them. 
(k) In the Carrington scrubs (Atherton district) the child- 
ren will often amuse themselves in walking up certain 
trees. They will pull out a thin strip of bark, free it from 
below, and then drag themselves up on it with their hands, 
jerking off more and more of the strip as they advance. I 
have purposely mentioned this trick here, as I cannot help 
but regard it as imitative of their elders climbing trees—an 
exertion to which, with but very few exceptions, they are 
impelled only through the search for food, 7.e., for purposes 
of hunting. 
Human Actions—Ceremonial.Among amusements de- 
rivable from ceremonial, one concerning which there cannot 
be doubt is the implement known to us English boys as the 
““roarer,’ “ hummer,’ “whirler,’ &c., and met with 
throughout North Queensland. It is a flattened spindle- 
shaped piece of wood, into one extremity of which an aper- 
ture is drilled (Pl. XXVIII., 1), and by means of which it is, 
attached to a piece of string held in the hand or fixed to the 
end of a small stick. The whirler can thus be rapidly re- 
volved, and with a sudden extra jerk given a little additional 
impetus, so as to make it “roar.” The extremity of the 
hummer further from the aperture is sometimes cut off 
obtusely (Pl. XXVIII., 2). These playthings vary from 3 
to 6 inches in length, are never graved, but may be painted. 
In the N.W.-Central districts they are used indiscriminately 
by either sex, and atany age; on the Bloomfield, Lower Tully, 
and at Cape Grafton they are employed by young men and 
boys only. At the Bloomfield, the method of using them is 
taught at the first initiation ceremony, though the boy so 
taught can play it in public, and before women, subse- 
quently; on the Tully it is believed to have been imtro- 
duced only within recent times, and made by the big boys 
to frighten little ones. 
On the Tully, and at Atherton, the boys will take any 
light flat piece of wood, and, holding it vertically, will, with 
an apparent initial whirl, throw it face forwards against the 
air, so as to produce a humming sound. The Mallanpara 
call it by the same term as applied to their toy-“ cross.” 
Wrestling (sect. 17), as well as some of the corroboree 
dances, might be originally derived from ceremonial. The 
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