the handles. The shields are
carried by passing the left arm through the upper handle downwards,
the left hand holding the lower handle.

CHAPTER XII

Hunting, Fishing and Agriculture

Hunting.

This is engaged in more or less all the year round, especially
as regards wild pigs when wanted for village killing. The animals
chiefly hunted are pigs, kangaroos, wallabies, the "Macgregor bear,"
[84] large snakes, cassowaries and other birds.

The hunting weapons and contrivances used are spears, bows and arrows,
nets and traps; but adzes and clubs are used in connection with
net hunting. The spears are those used for war. The bows and arrows
employed for hunting animals and cassowaries are also the same as
those used for war; but these are not much used. For bird-shooting
(excluding cassowary-shooting) they generally use arrows (Plate 73,
Fig. 5) the points of which are made of four rather fine pieces of
bamboo cane, closely bound together at the place of insertion into
the reed shaft, and also bound together further down, but with a
piece of stick or some other material inserted between them inside
this second binding, so as to keep them a little apart and make them
spread outwards, thus producing a four-pronged point. The arrows vary
in length from 5 to 6 or 7 feet, and their points vary from 4 to 10
inches. The adzes and clubs are the same as those used for war.

The people generally hunt in large parties for pigs (hunted with
either spears or nets), kangaroos and wallabies (hunted with nets
only), and Macgregor bears, cassowaries, and big snakes (hunted with
spears only). The hunters may be members of a single village or of a
whole community. They generally return home on the same day, except
when hunting the Macgregor bear, which is only found on the tops of
high mountains, and so requires a longer expedition. They usually
take out with them large numbers of young boys, who are not armed,
and do not take part in the actual killing, but who, when the party
reaches the hunting ground, spread out in the bush, and so find the
animals. While doing this the boys bark like dogs. Sometimes dogs
are taken instead, but this is unusual, as they have not many dogs.

A preliminary ceremony is performed by a person whose special duty
it is, and who, I think, is usually the pig-killer. He takes a
particular kind of fragrant grass, makes an incantation over it,
rubs it on the noses of the dogs (if there are any), [