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I was up too late to go with the Black-but-Comelys, and as the sun was hot I went further round the point and bathed in the shade. And the bee-bites must be those horribly irritating pimples I have across my back. The cause of illness settled to her satisfaction, Bootha asked how to cure it.
Masculine Hippi BROTHER AND SISTER Feminine, Hippitha Masculine Kubbee BROTHER AND SISTER Feminine, Kubbootha The children of Bootha will be Masculine Hippi BROTHER AND SISTER Feminine, Hippitha The children of Matha will be Masculine Kubbee BROTHER AND SISTER Feminine, Kubbootha The children of Hippatha will be Masculine Kumbo BROTHER AND SISTER Feminine, Bootha The children of Kubbootha will be
Again she said a sort of incantation, and again, after a while, came the whistling voice reply this time from another direction, not quite so loud. The same sort of thing was gone through with the same result. Then Bootha said she would ask Guadgee, a black girl who had been one of my first favourites in the camp, and who had died a few years previously.
In olden times all would have been painted in full war paint, weapons in hand, to see the corpse. I was given permission to go to the funeral, old Bootha was to take me. I heard that Beemunny had died early in the night. Her daughter and nearest of kin had sat all night beside her body, with each a hand on it to guard her from the spirits.
Old Bootha was in a terrible state of grief, and chopped herself in a most merciless manner at the burial, especially about the head. She would speak to no one, used to spend her time about the grave, round which she fixed upright posts which she painted white, red, and black. All round the grave she used to sweep continually.
Lunatics, from their point of view, are only persons spirit-possessed. Gradually old Bootha, clothed as usual, came back about the place. Strange stories came through the house blacks to me of old Bootha. She was very ill for a long time, then suddenly she recovered; not only recovered but seemed rejuvenated.
Whiz came an old bill; then, one after another, a regular fusilade of various utensils. It did not take us long to get past, but for as long as we could see the attack was kept up. Coming back we saw nothing of Bootha, and all the utensils had been picked up. I used to tell the other blacks to see that Bootha had plenty of food. They said she was all right, the spirits were looking after her.
Bootha went straight up to the sick girl, expressed a few sympathetic sentences, then she said she would ask the spirits what had made Adelaide ill and what would cure her. She moved my furniture until she left the centre of the room clear; she squatted down, and hanging her head began muttering in an unintelligible dialect.
Bootha got up then, came over to the patient, took her hand, rubbed it round the wrist several times, muttering an incantation; then saying she would see her again next day, off she went, taking, she told us, all the spirits away inside her, whence at desire they could be returned to such Minggah in their own Noorunbah, or hereditary hunting-grounds, as wirreenuns had placed them in, or to roam at their pleasure when not required by those in authority over spirits.
The mothers, with native politeness, ask you to give their children English names, but much mote often use in familiar conversation either the Kumbo Bootha names, or others derived from place of birth, from some circumstance connected with it, a child's mispronunciation of a word, some peculiarity noticed in the child, or still more often they call each other by the name proclaiming the degree of relationship.
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