636 MATHEWS—SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES. [Oct. 5, 
coot—they roll him over on his back and examine whether he is 
a buck or a doe. 
Among all the aboriginal tribes with which I am acquainted mas- 
turbation and sodomy are practiced on certain occasions.’ It is 
more general in the Kimberley district and Northern Territory 
than elsewhere reached by my inquiries, but I have traced them 
in the inaugural rites and ceremonial corrobories of the natives in 
all the Australian colonies. 
In previous articles I have referred to the enactment of an ob- 
scene and disgusting tableau, called Lodbadlaz.* In several rehear- 
sals of this tableau which I have witnessed there-was no actual 
sodomy, but some of the old head-men present told me the vice 
was perpetrated in former times during this portion of the Bora 
ceremonies. 
Mr. R. B. Smyth narrates a legend of the Victorian tribes which 
credits Boonjil, a traditionary ancestral chief, with micturating 
continually for several days upon the earth, the ample store of 
urine flowing away and forming the great sea.° 
In the Dieyerie tribe the men obtained blood by wounding the 
penis for the purpose of fixing the down of birds upon their bodies 
at certain ceremonial dances. Mr. S. Gason* states that when the 
people of that tribe wish to make the wild fowl lay an abundant 
supply of eggs some of the able-bodied men sit in a circle, each 
having a bone from the leg of a kangaroo, sharpened at one end, 
with which they pierce the scrotum several times. .... They 
are generally laid up for two or three weeks afterward and are 
unable to walk. 
Dr. E. C. Stirling, in describing the customs of some tribes in 
tne Northern Territory, states that in some cases of severe illness 
the sick man is anointed all over with blood obtained by piercing 
the labia minora. The patient is held by several women while she, 
whose blood is being used, rubs it all over his body, after which a 
coating of grease is used. A sick woman may be similarly an- 
ointed with blood taken from the male urethra.° 
1 Proc. AMER. PHILOs. Soc., Vol. xxxix, p. 125. 
2 Fourn. Anthrop. lnst., London, Vol. xxv, pp. 333, 334- 
3 Aborigines of Victoria (Melbourne, 1878), Vol. i, p. 429. 
4 The Dieyerie Tribe of Australian Aborigines (Adelaide, 1874), p. 25. 
5 Horn Expedition Central Australia, Part iv, p. 182. 
