MAGIC STONES AND ELECTRIC GEMS 17
own bodies to that of another. The ceremony proceeds as follows:80
The
Nung-gara [medicine-men] then withdrew from their bodies a number of
small clear crystals called Ultunda which were placed one by one, as
they were extracted, in the hollow of a spear-thrower. When a
sufficient number had been withdrawn, the Nung-gara directed the man
who had come with them to clasp the candidate from behind and to hold
him tightly. Then each of them picked up some crystals, and taking hold
of a leg, gripped the stones firmly and pressed them slowly and
strongly along the front of the leg and then up the body as high as the
breast-bone. This was repeated three times, the skin being scored at
intervals with scratches, from which blood flowed. By this means the
magic crystals are supposed to be forced into the body of the man.. . .
After which each of them pressed a crystal on the head of the novice
and struck it hard, the idea being to drive it into the skull, the
scalp being made to bleed during the process....
One
of the Nung-gara then withdrew from his skull just behind his ear (that
is, he told the novice that he kept it there) a thin and sharp Ultunda,
and taking up some dust from the ground, dried the man's tongue with
it, and then, pulling it out as far as possible, he made with the stone
an incision almost half an inch in length.
The mesticas of
the Malays represent a class of stones differing in important respects
from the various types of bezoars. A principal distinction is that the mesticas are
not supposed to owe their origin to pathological conditions in the
organism wherein they occur, but rather to a superabundance of the
normal and healthy constituents of the animal or plant. It is probably
due to this that the virtues of these particular concretions are rather
talismanic than therapeutic, and that they are believed to endow the
finder, or one who receives them by gift, with courage, immunity from
injury, and also with cunning and shrewdness in the affairs of life.
Especially by warriors are these stones highly valued, for they are
supposed to protect the wearer from wounds ; indeed, this belief
sometimes went so far as
Spencer and Gillen, " The Native Tribes of Central Australia," London, 1899, pp. 625-629.
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