Volume 03 Item 08: Walter Edmund Roth Bulletin No. 18 Social and Individual Nomenclature, 1904-1906 - Page 86

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stitions with regard to the hair and teeth. The hair of
very young babies is allowed to group up to 5 inches or
so long: if the slightest tendency to fall out shows itself,
the hair is divided up into throws (like a mop-broom) each
throw being fixed up with a piece of bees-wax at its extremity
- if not thus taken care of the child is certain to become
bald when older. For some time after its being able to walk by
itself, the child's hair is cut off with quartz-crystal and made
into string: this is worn either by the mother or grandmother,
or else then round the child itself to support its prominent
abdomen. The grandparents are believed to provide new
hair and teeth when attention is paid to these details. When
the child's milk teeth fall out, each one as it comes is given
to the father or mother who bury it under a tă-t[i] tree - a
plant bearing an edible fruit and a flower something like
that of a love-apple. Their curious fancies as to dogs
is referred to in sect 11.; to make a good "hunter" of any 
particular dog, he is each morning rubbed over with a
piece of quartz-crystal. With regard to falling stars, see next section.
28. Magic and Witchcraft. The "doctors", rōn-yă-j[i], are really
"sharpers" practising slight-of-hand trickery. There is not much
of initiation about them, they learning their craft through
friends and confederates. They lead lives similar to any other
of the community. The cries of animals and birds can hardly
be said to be taken as omens, though a certain cry (of one particular bird, which they have evidently not recognised in the flesh) indicated a message of sickness. Thus when a man is far
away from home and family, and happens to fall sick, one
of his mates will throw a lighted fire-stick up in air in
the direction of the patients country telling it over which
particular tract to travel so as to get there with the least
possible delay: his family hear the message cry, which they
speak of as gē-wā, and consequently know that he is sick. In
the same way a falling star, evidently in its similitude to
a falling fire-stick, is sometimes ascribed to "gewa", though
it may be noted that such stars are also often
believed to be quartz-crystals.