The following [illustrates] how the Aborigine diagnoses the various illnesses in accordance with their outward manifestations. [At first] the tongue of the patient is examined. If it looks darker [than normal], he supposes that the lungs are affected in sympathy. Accordingly, there follow natural or magical [efforts] to effect a cure.
in the event of sickness to suck it out of a person's body. If anyone is sick, the kunki witch-doctor is called in to cure (kunki manina to bedoctor) the patient. First the [doctor] plucks a few hairs from his armpit, then allows these, together with a little fat, to burn away on a glowing coal. When the coal has almost gone out, he rubs it in both hands and holds it in front of the patient's nose so as to let him smell it. After the kunki has stroked the patient's body with both hands, from his chest down to his legs, he asks the patient regarding the whereabouts of his pain. If he is accurately informed of this, he touches (dapana) the infected and painful spot with his mouth. This he does repeatedly, and as often as he performs this act (dapana), he spits a little blood into a wooden dish placed at his side, into which some water has been poured. But [to enable him] to do this, he [first] slits his gums with a sharp bone. Before very long he spits out [some] small pebbles or chips of wood into the wooden dish, to show the bystanders (people) what rubbish he has extracted from this infected area of the body. "Tomorrow", is his final decree, "we shall see whether you have improved or not". If the patient has not improved, the process is repeated and even another kunki is called in. A kunki eats no fat, nor may he smell anything burnt, for this would render him incompetent in his profession.
This is a common incidence among the Aborigines. Under the armpit they develop a sort of lump or swelling.
These perspiration hairs in the armpit are used by witchdoctors as a means of curing patients. When the former is called in to [attend] a patient, he tears several hairs from his [own] armpit, places them on to a glowing coal to be singed, and lets the patient smell it. When the coal is extinguished, the witchdoctor pulverizes it in his hands, mixes some fat with it, and rubs the patient in with it.
Patients always favour a change of wurleys and stopping-over places.
Stakes are placed in the ground, and the dysentery is supposed not to pass beyond these. ngato kudnaltjaia katu kurijiribana warai, tana wolja kudnatjurala nganai ja palila nganai I dysentery boundary have erected, they soon to get diarrhoea will and die will I have set up a boundary for dysentery, and those on the other side will soon [contract diarrhoea and] die
This occurs in the following manner. When a man is annoyed with the people of an entire locality, he tries to play them a dirty trick, He goes beyond the boundary of his own area, opposite the place he wants to bewitch. There he sets up a pair of eagle's feet, scatters down-feathers which the wind is expected to blow into the camp, and sings his mura or ngilbi [song]. When the wind blows the feathers away, the people contract a type of yaws. Now on the look out, these people discover that here or there the local folks have not developed any yaws; so the epidemic must have been inflicted by them. Revenge is [therefore] planned. For the motivator Reuther: "Ursaecher" [sic]. things get very unsafe [or uncomfortable]. He goes out and rubs the claws of the pair of eagle's feet with fat; he also rubs himself with it, sings his mura [again], and the epidemic ceases.
used for medicinal [purposes].
[Supposing] someone gets sick. He knows that he has to die and also who bewitched him, but he would like to get well. The patient tells his friend to send his (i.e. the patient's) wife to fetch a magic bone. She goes. The men (people) in that camp know what this signifies, namely, that if they don't give her a bone, vengeance will be eked out on them. [Yet] they have the right to fornicate with the woman concerned. Since she is not allowed to see a [magic] bone, one is wrapped up and sent back with her. The friend accepts it, tells the patient, and casts the bone into some water, whereby it is rendered harmless. Joyfully the patient ponders the thought day and night that he is now going to recover. In a dream he sees the bone cast into the water, and convalesces.
If there are several patients in a camp, they are brought together into one hut, so that they can be jointly cared for.
to suck out the rubbish Reuther: "Unrat". at the seat [or source] of trouble. The kunki does this.