were derived. These Baetyli were stones of a round form; they were supposed to be animated by means of magical incantations with a portion of the Deity, they were consulted on occasions of great and pressing emergency as a kind of divine oracle, and were suspended either round the neck or some other part of the body.'
"That this veneration for certain pieces of quartz or crystal is common over a very great portion of the continent is evident from the following extracts from Threlkeld's Vocabulary, p. 88:—
"'Mur-ra-mai, the name of a round ball, about the size of a cricket-ball, which the Aborigines carry in a small net suspended from their girdles of opossum yarn. The women are not allowed to see the internal part of the ball. It is used as a talisman against sickness, and it is sent from tribe to tribe for hundreds of miles on the sea-coast, and in the interior. One is now here from Moreton Bay, the interior of which a black showed me privately in my study, betraying considerable anxiety lest any female should see its contents. After unrolling many yards of woollen cord, made from the fur of the opossum, the contents proved to be a quartz-like substance of the size of a pigeon's egg. He allowed me to break it and retain a part. It is transparent, like white sugar-candy. They swallow the small crystalline particles which crumble off as a preventive of sickness. It scratches glass, and does not effervesce with acids. From another specimen, the stone appears to be agate of a milky hue, semi-pellucid, and strikes fire. The vein from which it appears broken off is one inch and a quarter thick. A third specimen contains a portion of cornelian, partially crystallized, a fragment of chalcedony, and a fragment of a crystal of white quartz.'
"And again, in Mitchell's Expeditions into Australia, vol. II., p. 338:—
"'In these girdles the men, and especially their coradjes or priests, frequently carry crystals of quartz or other shining stones, which they hold in high estimation, and very unwillingly show to any one, invariably taking care, when they do unfold them, that no woman shall see them.'"[1]
- ↑ Two Expeditions of Discovery. Grey, vol. II., pp. 340-2.
