TREATMENT AFTER CIRCUMCISION IN THE 
HERMIT HILL TRIBE, DALY RIVER. NORTHERN 
TERRITORY. 
By Kyut Daut. 
Communicated by E. C. Stiruine, M.D. 
[Read July 2, 1895.] 
One day in rambling through the swampy woods to the south 
of the Daly River I came across a small encampment of blacks 
belonging partly to the Hermit Hill and partly to the Mollak 
Mollak tribes. In the camp were two boys—brothers—who had 
recently been circumcised; besides these there were an old 
woman, their mother, three or four young male relatives, and a 
lubra belonging to one of the two boys. The convalescents were 
sitting on the ground under a tree, each with his penis in a paper- 
bark bandage fastened on to his belt with a frequently doubled 
piece of twine made out of hair. Their sad and dejected features 
lit slightly up when I presented them with a piece of tobacco, 
and upon my request one of the boys began to remove the 
curiously arranged bandage. He first undid the strings of fibre 
which encircled the strap of hair-twine and paper-bark, then 
removed the paper-bark, and exposed a little mat of woven grass 
that was wrapped round an inner layer of very fine paper-bark 
next to the wound. The penis was greatly swollen and in a 
state of inflammation that seemed to cause the boy great suffer- 
ing. I was just wondering what means they used for healing 
such a painful and, if neglectea, serious wound, when my eye 
rested on a sheet of paper-bark which I ascertained covered a 
hole dug in the ground about a foot in depth and width. In the 
centre of the sheet of paper-bark was a hole about two inches in 
diameter and burnt at the edges. On my inquiring the use of 
such an arrangement, the boy answered, ‘Him cook him ‘long 
hot fellow stone.” I asked when the performance would take 
place. ‘Close up,” he said; so I sat down, anxious to see this 
radical treatment put in practice, and waited until some stones 
which were lying in the fire were sufficiently heated. When the 
stones were glowing a boy brought some wet moss from an adja- 
cent lagoon. The paper-bark sheet was then removed from the 
hole, some old rubbish raked out, and some wet moss put in its 
place. Two or three of the red-hot stones were then thrown into 
