IIOKN EXPEDITION NAKKATIVE. 37 



and it will lie iiott'tl that, in cuiitrast to such triljcs as tlic Ui rapuiina, and 

 Dicyric, who iidialjit e-ouutry further soutli, descent is counted in the male and 

 not in the female line. 



When preparing for an ordinary corroliboree a large cpiantity of grass down is 

 collected and arrayed in little piles of various colours. The white is obtained hy 

 nii.xing it with powdered and calcined gypsum, the red with red ochre and the 

 yellow with yellow ochre, while a pink colour is often also made by putting in less 

 red or nii.\iiig the red and white together so th;it the down is just tinged. Once 

 when wa.ndering through the scrub at Tempo Downs I came across a party of some 

 twelve men preparing for a currobboree to be held in the evening. They were 

 sitting down in a small cleared space. First of all conical helmets were made out 

 of Cassia twigs bound together with opossum fur-string so that the point was 

 about two feet or eighteen inches above the crown of the head on to which the 

 broad end fitted tightly. Then they sat down in pairs, two men opposite to each 

 other, with the requisite amount of coloured down in little heaps close at hand. 

 Blood was drawn into the concavity of a spear thrower to serve, when congealed, 

 as a gum with which to attach the down. As a general rule the blood is obtained 

 by cutting a vein in the arm with a sharp Hint or a piece of glass if such can \>g 

 secured, but in this instance it was all obtained by probing the sub-iucised urethra 

 with a sharp, pointed stick. 



Then each man took a short stick with a little opossum fur string twisted 

 round one end so as to form a brush, dipped this into the blood and smeared it 

 over the place to which he wished to attach the grass down on to the helmet, face 

 or body of his friend sitting opposite to him. In some cases (as shown in the 

 illustrations of the Anthropological section) the pattern thus formed is a very 

 regular symmetrical one, in others it is asymmetrical. Very often the whole front 

 (jf the helmet and the face, as far down as the mouth, is covered with a regular 

 solid pattern of down which just leaves two circular patches in the centre of each 

 of which is an eye. 



The pattern may Ije continueil right on down the body and along the legs aiul 

 arms ami very freiiuently (depending of course u\K>n the sjiecial corrobijoree being- 

 enacted) the toilet will Ije completed by a tuft of eagle feathers waving from the 

 apex of the helmet and, as in this particular instance, by anklets and armlets of 

 little leafy twigs of the gum tree. 



Whilst this preparation is going on, and it may last for hours, a low humming 

 of a corrobboree tune is kcjjt uj), though, every now and again they bui'st forth into 



