PRESERVING HUMAN FAT. 295 



sembles the "golden teeth" often observed in 

 sheep and other herbaceous animals.* 



The aborigines have a custom of preserving 

 human fat. I observed it among the Yas, Mur- 

 rumbidgee, and other tribes. They show it with 

 reluctance to Europeans. I could not ascertain 

 the motive with certainty. Some said it was as 

 a charm — others that it was used in the cure of 

 diseases : that it is applied to the latter purpose 

 I believe, from having seen it smeared over or 

 near the place at which a patient complained of 

 pain, or had received injury. The fat is not 

 taken from particular individuals, that from any 

 human body being considered equally efficacious. 

 The aborigines, when young, have the foot arched, 

 becoming flattened as they advance in years ;t 



* On the surface of the tooth there is sometuTties deposited 

 a substance termed the tartar of the teeth. It frequently 

 assumes a yellow colour, with a smooth surface, in the ox 

 and the sheep, and has been ignorantly considered as gold 

 derived from the pasture. It is merely a precipitation froiK 

 the saliva. Berzelius found it^to consist of earthy phos- 

 phate, 79.0 ; mucus not yet decomposed, 12.5 ; peculiar sa- 

 linary matter, 1.0 ; and animal matter, soluble in muriatic 

 acid, 7.5=100.0.— v4«. PUl. vol. ii. p. ^%\.-— Quoted in Fie- 

 ming's Philosophy of Zoology, vol. ii. p. 166. 



-j- It is remarked (in a pamphlet of a Journey of Discovery 

 to Port Philip, New South Wales, by Messrs. Hovel and 

 Hume, Sydney. 8vo. 1831, undertaken in 1824 and 1825,) 



