652 NOTES ON THE NATIVES OF WEST KIMBERLEY, N.W. AUSTRALIA, 



the inner bark of the baobab tree, round the waist, and a similar 

 one round the forehead ; their long hair is tied up in a bunch at 

 the back of the head, in which they carry all their spare spear- 

 heads, on which they set great value. The young piccaninnies 

 often have a band of human hair round the waist ; the gins have 

 a small fringe of soft woolly string, and the boys a similar one 

 only shaped like a big tassel, made from opossum fur worked into 

 string by rubbing between the hands, and twisted on a primitive 

 spinning-jenny, which is held between the toes. 



At the age of nine or ten the boys are cii'cumcised, for which 

 purpose they are taken away from the camp on a fixed day 

 by the old men. This rite is performed at day-break, after 

 chanting and singing all night ; and men are stationed round 

 whirling flat oval sticks, on which are carved curious symbols ; 

 these sticks flying through the air make a loud whirring sound 

 warning the gins and children away from the place. No gins or 

 uncircumcised boys are allowed to see the sticks, which at other 

 times are kept carefully wrapped up in bark. About five years 

 later, the young men undergo a much more severe rite, namely 

 the splitting of the urethra, which is conducted with further 

 mysteries in a secluded place. The only reason that .1 could 

 learn for this curious mutilation is a statement of an old man, that 

 until it was done " they were all the same dog (or other animal "). 



The gins are held to be of little account, so that after death, 

 except in the case of a favourite wife, their bodies are left 

 unburied where they die. The corpses of the old men and children, 

 however, are swathed in paper-bark and placed in clefts in the 

 rocks out of reach of the wild dogs. In some caves Mr. Gunn 

 and I explored in the Oscar range, we found scores of these 

 remains, many of the skeletons quite perfect until we handled 

 them when they fell to pieces. If a child dies when away from 

 its people, the natives with whom it may be, have to bring the 



