They scarify the skin in every part with sharp shells.
The women and female children are generally found to want the first two joints of the little finger of the left hand, which are taken off while they are infants, and the reason they assign is, that they would be in the way in winding the fish-lines over the hand.
The men all want one of their front teeth, which is knocked out when they arrive at the age of fifteen or sixteen, with many ridiculous ceremonies; but the boys are not allowed to consider themselves as men before they have undergone that operation.
They live chiefly on fish, which they sometimes spear and sometimes net; the women, on the parts of the coast, aiding to catch them with the hook and line.
"The facility," (observes Captain Sturt), "with which they procured fish was really surprising.
"They would slip, feet foremost, into the water, as they walked along the bank of the river, as if they had accidentally done so; but, in reality, to avoid the splash they would have made if they had plunged in head foremost.
"As surely as a native disappeared under the surface of the water, so surely would he re-appear, with a fish writhing upon the point of his short spear.
"The very otter scarcely exceeds them in power over the finny race, and so true is the aim of these savages, even under the water, that all the fish we procured from them were pierced either close behind the lateral fin or in the very centre of the head."
If a dead whale happens to be cast on the shore, numbers flock to it, from every part of the coast, and they feast sumptuously while any part remains.