Transcription

39

available they used to take great care of the "yske yskes" but as they are easily made now and are a great nuisance to carry about when shifting camp any distance, they are generally left behind to be burned by the first bush fire that comes along. Hence no very old ones are now obtainable. Of course when they are in use for several years they would look as if they had been polished owing to the amount of grease they would absorb and the constant handling. Another cause of the instrument being cut off in its prime is that at times the boys will keep up the performance at all hours during the day or night until some irate individual gets thoroughly sick of the sound and smashes the instrument : then perhaps they will not take the trouble to make another for a year or so "When the musician desires to perform he places the "larger end on a forked stick, or on the roof of his [gran?] "humpy and, applying his mouth to the smaller end "intones into it for hours at a stretch." The use of this (like the "bull-roarer" - sect 48-) is taught at the initiation ceremony, but (unlike it) can be used in the camp before the gins and uniniated [uninitiated] males. It is never used here to imitate the "call" of the carrowary or emu (of. the "emu-calls" of the Gulf country) though curious to say, the blacks have a legend that it was used by the certain spirits for that very purpose, long before the blacks themselves knew how to use it.

57. Navigation
The canoes, cut out from a log, are all outrigged, the outrigger being affixed as shown in ^the accompanying diagram - the fibre-rope binding the constituent pieces together is not represented.

[diagram of canoe provided - view as drawn from above the canoe looking down, a side view and also a close up diagram of the outrigger]

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