These shoes have the form of a thick pad of emu feathers matted together with human blood drawn from the arm of some young man. They are so ingeniously made however that the use of anything like blood in their construction would never be suspected; indeed it is difficult to detect, even with the shoes in one's hands, how the feathers are matted into such a compact mass without apparently the use of anything like stitching. On the upper surface is a network of human hair string made from the hair of any living man or woman—it does not in the least signify who the individual is—and in the middle of the network is a hole through which the foot passes and across which stretches a cord made of several
Each Kurdaitcha man when going on his errand is accompanied by a medicine man and the two men are rubbed over with charcoal—black being in the Arunta tribe the colour associated with magic—and decorated with bands of white down. The hair of both men is tied up behind and a small conical helmet of twigs is fastened on with hair string. The Kurdaitcha himself has lines of down passing across the front of the helmet, down the side of the face and front of the body and legs as far as the knees. The medicine man has a median line running from the top of the helmet to the tip of his nose; another curved line meeting this at both ends encloses
477:1 An excellent account of the Kurdaitcha custom as it formerly existed in the southern part of the Arunta tribe has already been published by Mr. P. M. Byrne, Proc. Roy. Soc., Victoria, vol. iii. (new series), p. 65. Various accounts have from time to time been published with regard to the so-called Kurdaitcha shoes associating them with “rain-making,” etc., but the most accurate and reliable account is that given by Mr. Byrne, and quoted subsequently by Dr. Stirling in the Anthropological Report of the Horn Expedition. An interesting account containing various ideas with regard to the shoes is given by Mr. R. Etheridge, jun., Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., 1894, p. 544. 477:2 In the Urabunna tribe the same custom prevails, but the name Kūthi is given to the man. 478:1 A considerable number of these shoes are made apparently more for models than for use, and such are usually much too small to be worn on a native foot, and do not have the small hole, though probably this is not made until the time of actual use. 495:1 They were, according to our terms of relationship, cousins. Their mothers were the daughters of the same woman by different husbands.