THE MIKA OR KULPI OPERATION. 117 
stated by Creed,! who gives the opening as being from one to one 
and a half inches long. So also Lumholz,? who says that the 
Georgina River blacks make a similar opening an inch long in the 
same position, and Provis® gives half an inch. 
The incision is made with a sharp edged piece of quartz, shell, 
flint, or, in more recent times, glass. These fixed with resin, twine 
etc., into handles constitute the ‘“‘mika-knives.” The bleeding is 
stanched with sand,‘ and the edges of the wound are burnt, 
Lumholz says, with hot stones—perhaps, as Etheridge suggests, 
to cauterize them—and are kept from adhering again and healing 
by being kept apart with bits of stick, wood, bark, or bone inserted 
between them, or by being filled with clay,® or by being rubbed 
with a broad edged stone. The result is a permanent slit, cleft 
or opening. Stretton speaking of Leeanuwa tribe, Borroloola, 
Northern Territory, says that no dressing is used.® Palmer’ states 
that amongst the Kalkadoona of Central Queensland, the urethra 
is said to be sometimes “taken out,” that is “cut out” after the 
wound is healed, that is after the wounds from the operation of 
slitting of the urethra are healed. 
The time of life at which it is done varies very much; eight 
days is the soonest 1 have seen recorded, then ten years, fourteen 
years, eighteen years, and lastly the man may first be the father 
of two or three children, and then be operated upon. In some 
tribes all the males are said to be operated upon, in others some 
are left unoperated upon. In that case sometimes the strong and 
able bodied are selected for operation, sometimes they are those 
that are left intact. 
1 J. M. Creed—Australasian Medical Gazette, Vol. 11., 1883, p. 95. 
2 tek Cannibals, 1870, p. 48. = 
Police-Corporal C. Provis, speaking of the natives of Port Lincoln in 
“ap Folklore, Adelaide, 1879, p. 99. 
* Howitt—Journ. Anthrop. Inst., xx., 1890-91. 
oe ERS tate Roy. Soc. 8. Aust., xv., 1892, p. 121. 
* Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Aust., xvit.,-1893, p. 232. 
7 Journ. Anthrop. Inst, xx:, p. 85. 
