HORN EXPEDITION—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
97 
from the country north of the JNtcDonnells. Tn this case the pattern is in black 
and white on a yellow ochre ground-work. 
Tlie knives are carried in a sheath of the paper-bark of a species of Melaleuca,* 
which is sometimes, as in this example, stiflened internally with longitudinally 
disposed loose grass stems, while externally the papery-bark of the sheath is held 
together by being closely bound round with fur-string, thickly smeared with white 
clay (kaolin). When carried on the person the knife, in its sheath, is worn in the 
waist-band. In some of the best examples of these knives the tip of the sheath is 
ornamented by a small plume of feathers. In that figured, this plume has been 
made by tying, with sinew, the |)oints of fine uuderfeathers of the emu to the end 
of a short thin stick, which is thrust into the tubular point of the sheath, the 
feathers only appearing externally. In this case they are so arranged that they 
radiate starwise, quill end outwards, from the tip of the sheath at right angles to 
its long axis. In another example in the S.A. Museum from Barrow Creek, the 
plume is the cre.st of Leadbeater’s Cockatoo, which is tied to a stick in the same 
way, but the feathers form a simple bundle and do not radiate in the same way 
as in the specimen described. Probably, when originally made, the sheaths of 
all the knives possess a similar appendage which gets lost in the course of use. 
Total length of specimen figured, 10 inches; blade, 5 inches; greatest width of 
blade, 2^- inches. Knives of this character are found amongst all the tribes from 
the McDonnell Ranges to the Katharine River and they have a wide range :ilso to 
the east and west. A very similar knife from Western Queensland is figured in 
“ Among Cannibals,” Luinholtz, page 48. 
There is one peculiar point about these knives, of which I have examined a 
great many authentic specimens, in that hardly any of them show any signs of 
having been used, either by the wearing or chipping of the edges, or by the 
staining of the surfaces. It is hardly to be believed that the native is careful to 
keep his knife clean, so that it appears to me, that they are carried more for 
ornament than for u.se, and, in fact, I never saw one being used. I understand 
from Mr. Gillen that small sized knives of this character are used in the initiatory 
rites. Only one implement, however, comes to me as having been thus employed. 
This consists of a thin short lanceolate blade of light green bottle glass, with 
one flat and one very slightly convex surface; but the tip, in place of being pointed 
like the stone knives, has a rounded contour, and both this and the lateral margins 
have a very even, thin and keen cutting edge. For handle the base of the blade is 
fixed into an oval mass of Triodia resin, flattened, conformably with its sui'faces, and 
# Probably M. lencademlron or an allied species. 
14 
