presses the patient round the waist, gives her frequent drinks of cold
water, and sprinkles water over her. As soon as the afterbirth is
removed a steam is prepared. Two logs are laid horizontally, some
stones put in between them, then some fire, on top leaves of
eucalyptus, and water is then sprinkled over them. The patient stands
astride these logs, an opossum rug all over her, until she is well
steamed. After this she is able to walk about as if nothing unusual had
happened. Every night for about a month she has to lie on a steam bed
made of damped eucalyptus leaves. She is not allowed to return to the
general camp for about three months after the birth of her child.

Though perfectly well, she is considered unclean, and not allowed to
touch anything belonging to any one. Her food is brought to her by some
old woman. Were she to touch the food or food utensils of another they
would be considered unclean and unfit for use. Her camp is gailie--that
is, only for her; and she is goorerwon as soon as her child is born--a
woman unclean and apart. Immediately a' baby is born it is washed in
cold water.

Ghastly traditions the blacks have of the time when Dunnerh-Dunnerh,
the smallpox, decimated their ancestors. Enemies sent it in the winds,
which hung it on the trees, over the camps, whence it dropped on to its
victims. So terror-stricken were the tribes that, with few exceptions,
they did not stay to bury their dead; and because they did not do so,
flying even from the dying, a curse was laid on them that some day the
plague would return, brought back by the Wundah or white devils; and
the blacks shudder still, though it was generations before them, at the
thought that such a horror may come again.

Poison-stones are ground up finely and placed in the food of the person