ABORIGINAL TRIBES OF NEW SOUTH WALES AND VICTORIA. 219 



carefully greased all over with animal fat, but lias no cloth- 

 ing of any kind. The mother is generally able to get about 

 in a day or two, when the infant is placed in a kind of 

 basket or girdle made of paper-bark, and is carried on its 

 mother's hip. Certain foods are forbidden to women dur- 

 ing portions of their pregnancy and lactation. 



Infanticide is common, and if twins be born, one of them 

 is almost invariably killed. The children of young unmar- 

 ried girls are usually killed a few months after they are 

 born, by the old women filling their mouths and nostrils 

 with sand. They are opened along the belly and the 

 intestines removed, and the leaves of a kind of Acacia are 

 put inside the body, after which they are cooked like any 

 other animal, and are eaten by the old men. A man can- 

 not go near the spot where a child has been born. This 

 prohibition is called guruan. 



The Ngeumba Language. 

 The Ngeumba speaking people formerly occupied the 

 country from Brewarrina on the Darling River southerly 

 up the Bogan almost to Nyngan. They stretched thence 

 westerly beyond Cobar and Byrock, including the upper 

 portions of Mulga Creek and surrounding country. 



The Wail wan tribe occupies the country to the north- 

 east of the Ngeumba, whilst the Wongaibon people adjoin 

 them on the south. The languages of both the tribes 

 referred to have already been published by me. 1 



Nouns. 



Nouns are subject to inflection for number, gender and case. 



Number. — There are three numbers, the singular, dual 

 and plural. Womboin, a kangaroo; womboinbula, a couple 

 of kangaroos ; womboingirba, several kangaroos. 



1 " Le Langage Wailwan," Bull. Soc. (TAnthrop. de Paris, tome iv., 5 

 Serie, pp. 69 - 81. "The Wongaibon Language," Journ. Eoy. Soc. N. S. 

 Wales, Vol. xxxvi., pp. 147 - 154. 



