Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 25, 2025
According to Giaom, who states that among the Kowraregas this scarification is purely voluntary, the patient is laid upon the ground and held there, while the incisions are made with a piece of glass by some old man famous for his skill in performing the operation. The principal scarifications among women at Cape York and Muralug are in the form of long lines across the hips.
The population of Muralug is kept always about the same numerical standard by the small number of births, and the occasional practice of infanticide. Even of other infants some, especially females, are made away with in a similar manner when the mother is disinclined to support it.
In the beginning of 1849 a party of Badulegas who had spent two months on a friendly visit to the natives of Muralug treacherously killed an old Italega woman, married to one of their hosts. Two of her brothers from Banks Island were staying with her at the time, and one was killed, but the other managed to escape. The heads were carried off to Badu as trophies.
When the woman has recovered, she is painted red and white, her head covered with feathers, and returns to the camp." In Muralug, one of the Torres Straits Islands, a menstruous woman may not eat anything that lives in the sea, else the natives believe that the fisheries would fail.
An infant is named immediately after birth: and, on Muralug, these names for the last few years have been chosen by a very old man named Guigwi. Many of these names have a meaning attached to them: thus, two people are named respectively Wapada and Passei, signifying particular trees, one woman is called Kuki, or the rainy season, and her son Ras, or the driving cloud.
This initiation is not at Cape York and Muralug accompanied by the performance either of circumcision or the knocking out of a tooth, as in many parts of Australia.
According to Giaom ague is prevalent in Muralug during the rainy season, but is not much dreaded, as it is supposed to remove former complaints, such as the sores prevalent among children. At Cape York I have seen people affected with this complaint, but to what extent it occurs in that neighbourhood I cannot state.
When the woman has recovered, she is painted red and white, her head covered with feathers, and returns to the camp." In Muralug, one of the Torres Straits Islands, a menstruous woman may not eat anything that lives in the sea, else the natives believe that the fisheries would fail.
With regard to the curious burial ceremonies of the Kowraregas, I regret that I cannot be so explicit as might otherwise have been the case, as Giaom's information on this subject, and on this only, was not written down at the time. When the head of a family dies at Muralug, the body is laid out upon a framework of sticks raised a foot from the ground, and is there allowed to rot.
At the last place and Muralug the hair is almost always kept short still caprice and fashion have their sway, for at Cape York I have at times for a week together seen all the men and lads with the hair twisted into little strands well daubed over with red ochre and turtle fat.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking