HORN EXPEDITION-ANTHROPOLOGY. 
109 
specimen the strips of skins wei’e wound round thin pieces of stick iind these were 
then spliced with tendon to strands of hair string which were brought together in 
the same way so as to form a belt. 
As already mentioned oval concave plates, plain or variously marked, made 
out of the body-whorl of Melo ccthiopica, are occasionally found in use in a 
similar position, even as far south as the Peake, having made their way through 
the heart of the continent from the north and north-west coast; much more rarely 
a plate of the nacreous layer of the pearl shell oyster {Meleagrina margaritifera) 
forms a similar appendage. 
“ Knouts." 
Some curious articles, if the name I have given be justifiable, were given 
to me by Mr. Gillen. These consist of skeins about a foot long and heavily 
red-ochred, composed of from 30 to 80 strands of hard whipcord-like string of 
varying thickness. At opposite ends the constitutent strands are bound together 
with a few turns of the same material, which, on examination, proves to be some 
vegetable fibre. Mr. Gillen informs me that these cords are used for chastising 
recalcitrant and olfending females, and are in use amongst the Arunta, Kaitish, 
and Warrainunga tribes. 
Kupdaitcha Shoes. 
A pair of these peculiar shoes was given to me at xllice Springs by Mr. Gillen. 
I saw a pair also being made by a native at the police camp at Illamurta on the 
Ilpilla Greek, and we have not unfrequently received them at the South Australian 
Museum from various parts of Central Australia, particularly from the country in 
the neighbourhood of Lake Eyre. But whether they are still habitually used I 
cannot say. A very good and reliable account of their manner of employment has 
recently been written by Mr. P. M. Byrne* of Charlotte Waters, who has had a 
long and intimate acquaintance with the natives of his district, a section of the 
Arunta tribe. An abstract of this paper for which I am indebted to an article in 
the A 2 istralasian of 23rd November, 1895, may be conveniently introduced here 
as being probably the most authentic and reliable account that has appeared of a 
very singular custom. 
“This custom is known as that of ‘ Kurdaitcha luma,’ the first word signifying 
an evil being, the latter to walk about. 
* See also Royal Society Vict. Proceedings, vol. viii. (new series), p, 65. 
