BY W, W. PROGGATT. 653 



remains back with them as a proof of its death. Often, as a 

 punishment, the women are compelled to carry the dead bodies of 

 their children about with them for months before depositing them 

 in the rocks. After the second operation above referred to, the 

 young men have each a boy to wait on them, and, if fortunate, 

 they may get some old man's cast-off old hag, discarded for a 

 younger wife. It is only the old men who have more than one gin. 

 This, among the coast tribes, leads to a great many quarrels, for 

 the young bachelors are always trying to steal gins, and have a 

 regularly fixed plan. Creeping up beside the sleeping man they 

 try to transfix him with a hunting spear, and then, seizing the 

 coveted gin, they travel through the bush to the next tribe. If 

 the husband is not killed, as soon as he has recovered, he starts 

 in pursuit, and a meeting is arranged which is quite a formal 

 duel. If the aggressor comes off best man, he keeps possession 

 of the woman ; but if the husband is victor, the vanquished man 

 stands up before him while he takes a sharp hunting spear, and 

 drives it through the fleshy part of the offender's thigh, and 

 draws it out again, after which they are friends, but the young 

 man must never again meddle with the family affairs of the elder. 

 All the female children at birth are promised as wives to male 

 friends of the family ; and I have often seen an old man nursing 

 his future wife. There is a curious custom among them known as 

 ranibour; when a young man is promised as wife the first female 

 child that a certain young gin may bear, though at the time she 

 may be quite a girl and unmarried, he is then said to be 

 rambour with this gin ; and accordingly they must not speak or 

 •even look at each other, and if he comes into the camp, she slips 

 away and hides in the bush till he goes away. 



Tattooing is extensively practised among thein, many of the old 

 men and gins being covered with great wheals of flesh from this 

 cause; and I believe that many of these marks are made in 

 memory of some special event or exploit, as among the women on 



