260 R. H. MATHEWS. 



hatchets and chisels, or for any other purpose where gum 

 would be serviceable. 



When a woman is enceinte she cannot eat fish which 

 come in "schools." If she did so, it would cause them to 

 turn away to another place. This ban applies to little girls 

 and uninitiated boys, and lasts for some weeks after 

 " schools " commence to arrive. The bones of fish during 

 this period must not be given to dogs, but must be burned, 

 otherwise " schools " of fish would go elsewhere. A preg- 

 nant woman is allowed to eat rock-cod, flathead and leather- 

 jacket, but not schnapper, groper, or bream. 



If a woman who is enceinte were to eat forbidden fish at 

 sucli a time, the spirit of the unborn babe would go out of 

 its mother's body and frighten the fish away. If a male 

 infant, it would have a fishing spear — if a female a yamstick 

 — and stand on the water at the entrance to a fishing pen, 

 or in front of a net, and turn the fish back. The fish are 

 more afraid of a male infant, on account of its carrying a 

 spear, than of a female. Although these spirit children 

 are invisible to human eyes, the old men know they are 

 present by the movements of the fish, and at once suspect 

 some woman of having broken the food rules. 



When a man visits the people of another tribe, one of 

 them takes him a mouthful of cooked flesh on the end of a 

 small stick, like a skewer, and reaches it out to the stranger 

 who bites it off the stick with his mouth. As soon as this 

 ceremonial is over the stranger can enter into conversation 

 with his hosts, but not before. After a while, the hosts 

 take a vessel, iu which there is water and mix a little earth 

 into it, and give the visitor a drink. From that forth he 

 can eat the food and drink the water in their territory. If 

 he were to do these things without the ceremony described, 

 he would become ill and sores would break out over his 

 body. The first night of a stranger's arrival, his enter- 



