HORN EXPEDITION—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
105 
of the feathers, but this may be accidental. This article is worn riding 
saddle-fashion on the hair, which is brought together in a bunch, or chignon, 
at the occiput, and is bound on with a long length of fur-string. Surmounting 
this feather pad, in one example, is a fan-shaped plume of dark emu feathers 
composed of three constituent bundles bound together by fur-string; in another, 
which is that figured, the tail tip of a Peragale attached to a pointed stick is 
inserted at each upper corner. These head appendages are further fixed by from 
two to four pointed bone hairpins (Fig. 5a) made out of the upper end of a small 
marsupial fibula, from which the epiphysis has been removed. Two of the hairpins, 
in one specimen, have a rounded head of Triodia resin. 
Another specimen is not so large or so trough-shaped, and the plume is of the 
feathers of the delicate owl [Strix delicatulus).* 
As stated elsewhere, it is doubtful how far this form of head-dress is to be 
regarded as peculiar to the men of the Luritcha tribe. 
The following somewhat similar head ornament, however, was collected amongst 
the Arunta tribe. Emu feathers are loosely felted into an oval flat mass (lOin. by 
4in.), from the edges and surfaces of which the quill ends of the feathers project 
freely. This is fastened to the hair with bone hairpins, but no plume accom¬ 
panied it. 
Various feather plumes are worn on the head, which either hang over the 
forehead, being retained by the head band, or are fixed to a thin pointed stick and 
stuck into the hair. Worn in one or other of these ways, plumes of the feathers 
of the following birds were observed :—eagle-hawk {Aqui/a andax), western brown 
hawk i^Hieracidea occidentalis), delicate owl [Strix delicatuhis), or the two last-named 
in combination, and black cockatoo [Calyptorhynchus stellatus)^ the tail quills in 
combination with feathers of the delicate owl, besides, probably, others in which 
the coating of red ochre makes the specific diagnosis uncertain. 
Except in the case of the tail quills of the black cockatoo, the individual 
feathers of the plumes are split longitudinally down the shaft into two separate 
valves. 
A kind of head ornament worn in certain corrobborees and on other special 
occasions consist of a slender stick of some light yellow-coloured wood, about 
* I have to express my indebtedness to Mr. Zietz, Assistant Director of the South Australian Museum, for his 
valu.able aid in the specific determination of many of the feathers mentioned in this section. 
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