'Here's your father's sister,' and so on through a whole list. Then she will say, as the relatives and friends do not seem a draw:
'Make haste, the bumble fruit is ripe. The guiebet flowers are blooming. The grass is waving high. The birds are all talking. And it is a beautiful place, hurry up and see for yourself.'
But it generally happens that the baby is too cute to be tempted, and an old woman has to produce what she calls a wi-mouyan—a clever stick—which she waves over the expectant mother, crooning a charm which brings forth the baby.
If any one nurses a patient and the patient dies, the nurse wears an armlet of opossum's hair called goomil, and a sort of fur boa called gurroo.
If blacks go visiting, when they leave they make a smoke fire and smoke themselves, so that they may not carry home any disease.
As a rule blacks do not have small feet, but their hands are almost invariably small and well shaped, having tapering fingers.
CHAPTER VI
OUR WITCH WOMAN
Our witch woman was rather a remarkable old person. When she was, I suppose, considerably over sixty, her favourite granddaughter died.