Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/727

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XI
MESSAGE-STICKS
701

called Mangurt, and was sent also from one person to another as a friendly mark of regard. For ball-playing, the ball, made from the scrotum of an old-man kangaroo, stuffed with dry grass, was also sent.

The place of meeting being named in the message, which the messenger "carried in his mouth," it might be further necessary to indicate the day on which the people should assemble, and this was done, as with the Wotjobaluk, by enumerating parts of the human body, commencing with the little finger of one hand. The names of these enumerations are as follows:—

1. Bubupi-muningya, the child of the hand, the little finger.

2. Bulato-ravel, a little larger, the third finger.

3. Bulato, larger, the middle finger.

4. Urnung-meluk, from Urnung, a direction, and Meluk, a large grub found in some eucalypti; the forefinger.

5. Babungyi-muningya, the mother of the hand, the thumb.

6. Krauel, the wrist-joint.

7. Ngurumbul, a fork, the divergence of the radial tendons.

8. Jeraubil, the swelling of the radial muscles.

9. Thambur, a round place, the inside of the elbow-joint.

10. Berbert, the ringtail opossum. Also the name of the armlet made from the pelt of that animal, hence the name of the biceps round which the armlet is worn on festive occasions.

11. Wulung, the shoulder-joint.

12. Krakerap, the bag place, the place where the bag hangs by its band, i.e. the collar-bone.

13. Gurnbert, the reed necklace, the neck, or place where the reed necklace is worn.

14. Kurnagor, the point or end of a hill, or of a spur or ridge, hence the lobe of the ear.

15. Ngarabul, a range or the ridge of a hill, hence the side suture of the skull.

16. Bundial, the cutting-place, i.e. the place where the