1068 General Notes. . [ December, 
3. What do they profess to do? What are they believed to be able to do? That is, 
to which class above named do they claim to belong ? 
. What do they actually perform? What is their mode of treatment? Do they 
sing, dance, go into ecstasy, suck the wound, spit out the disease in the form of 
a bone, stone, &c.? Thatis, not what they claim to do, but what do they actu- 
ally? What dress, paraphernalia, implements and dramatic performances do 
they rescrt to? What fees do they charge ? i 
. What is the area of their operation, both in the spiritand in the mundane world ? 
Some cause, others cure disease. Some have influence in one sphere, others in 
other spheres of spirits. Again, some operate on the sick, others on the con- 
jured, lovers, lost cattle, epilepsy, etc. 
6. Folk-lore, beliefs and customs of the folk in view of the foregoing subjects of in- 
quiry. 
p> 
wt 
Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Howitt and others we are able to 
answer some of these questions concerning the Australians. “I 
have adopted,” says this author, “the term medicine men as a 
convenient title for this memoir, but the term ‘doctor’ or ‘ black- 
fellow doctor’ is always used in Australia for those men ina 
native tribe who profess to have supernatural powers. The doc- 
tors are magicians or wizards. I may roughly define doctors as 
men who profess to extract from the human body foreign sub- 
sfances which, according to aboriginal belief have been placed 
there by the magic of other doctors, wizards or supernatural 
beings, such as the Prewin of the Kurnai, or Ngarang of the 
Woiworung.” 
The social relations of these blackfellow doctors to the com- 
munity varies from tribe to tribe. In some tribes the head man 
need not be a wizard, but is either a very brave man or a man of 
influence. Among the Muning tribe the gommera is both head 
man and sorcerer combined. He is the éiaméian, or master of 
his local group. The oldest gummera is the bambian of the other 
gommeras. He must be gray bearded, speak several dialects and 
“bring things out of himself.” 
A vast deal of mystery surrounds the education of the doctors. 
Mr. Howitt narrates at full length, pp. 49-52, the story of his own 
initiation told by one of his friends. ; 
As said, the doctor and wizard are associated in function. 
They profess to project a quartz crystal or black stone against OF 
into their victim or into their own bodies, to cause magical things 
to enter a victim by burying them in his tracks, and on the other 
hand to annul the power of these introjections. These same 
clergy claim to know and to compel or restrain the weather 
(meteoroscopy or meteorocracy), to fly through the air, to T 
morphose themselves into animals, to be invisible and to ren 
persons and things invisible, to talk and associate with ghosts 
and familiars, to abstract a man’s fat, to discover the causes ; 
ath, disease or evil fortune, and finally to produce a coger 
_ effect upon a person by performing it upon a part te oe 
‘something he has touched or held. ; er eae 
_ There comes out in this study the very best interpretation = 
