310 
IMPLEMENTS. 
end, which is used as a knife or chisel ; flints or 
muscle shells are used for skinning animals, dissect- 
ing food, cutting hair, &c. 
The ngak-ko, a strong chisel- pointed stick, from 
three to four feet long, is used for dissecting the 
larger animals and fish, for digging grubs out 
of the trees, for making holes to get out opossums, 
&c., for stripping bark, ascending trees, for cutting 
bark canoes, and a variety of other useful purposes. 
The rod for noosing ducks, (tat-tat-ko) and other 
wild fowl, is about sixteen feet long, and consists, in 
its lower part, for the first ten feet, of hard wood, 
tapering like an ordinary spear, to this is cemented 
with resin, a joint of tolerably strong reed about six- 
teen inches long, at the upper end of this is inserted 
and cemented with wax, a tapering rod of hard 
wood, three feet long and very similar to the top 
joint of a fly-fishing rod, to this is spliced a fine 
springy and strong top, of about eighteen inches in 
length, at the end of which is bound a piece of fine 
strong cord, which works with a running noose upon 
the tapering end of the instrument. Needles are 
made from the fibula of the emu or kangaroo, and are 
pointed at one end by being rubbed on a stone, they 
are used in sewing as we use a shoemaker’s awl, the 
hole is bored and the thread put through with the 
hand ; the thread is made of the sinews of the emu 
and kangaroo. The netting needle is a little round 
bit of stick or reed, about the size of a lead pencil, 
round which the string is wound, no mesh is used, 
