Primitive Games. 283 



developed into a regular paiwarie orgie. Probably it 

 was always so. The headman of the place where the 

 macquari is to be held sends out, long before the day 

 appointed, his invitations, each guest being given a 

 knotted string or a notched stick, the knots or the 

 notches on which represent the number of days before 

 the game. The time appointed is, as indeed in all their 

 games and dances, when the moon will be full ; for the 

 proceedings are carried on steadily through day and 

 night. 



As regards the instruments to be used, I think, but 

 am not quite sure, that the hosts always make and sup- 

 ply these. Possibly, however, the guests make and 

 bring their own share. 



Of chief importance are the whips. The essential 

 parts of each of these consist of the handle, which is a 

 stout stick, some 20 inches long and perhaps 1^ inch in 

 diameter, and the lash from 2 to 2% feet long, which is 

 made of a bundle of parallel strands of the remarkably 

 tough fibres of the silk-grass, round which is very tightly 

 and closely bound more, this time heavily bees-waxed, 

 silk-grass : the whole forming as severe a cutting imple- 

 ment as any single lash could. But over these essential 

 parts of the whip is put a thin covering, by way of orna- 

 ment, of the far weaker uncleaned fibre (tibisiri) of the 

 acta palm (Mauritia flexuosa) ; and this latter is extended 

 and allowed to hang loose so as to make a sort of orna- 

 mental tassel at either end of the handle. At intervals of 

 about an inch, all along the lash, the tibisiri fibre is bound 

 tightly in with short lengths of bees-waxed silk-grass, thus 

 adding, as it were, to the already severe lash the additional 

 severity of a number of knots. Finally, by way of 



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