Note 35 — Chapter I

Footnote 35

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(return)

Walter E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 156, § 265. The custom of killing a man by pointing a bone or stick at him, while the sorcerer utters appropriate curses, is common among the tribes of Central Australia; but amongst them there seems to be no objection to place the bone or stick on the ground; on the contrary, an Arunta wizard inserts the bone or stick in the ground while he invokes death and destruction on his enemy. See Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), pp. 534 sqq.; id., Northern Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1904), pp. 455 sqq.