The digging up of roots and collecting of shellfish are duties which devolve upon the females.
Before the arrival of Europeans, in cases of remarkable disease or accident, certain old men known by the name of bilbo (by which cognomen the medical officers of the settlement have also been distinguished) were applied to for advice.

I know of no popular remedies, however, with the exception of tight ligatures near a wound, bruise or sore, the object of which is to prevent the malady from passing into the body.

In like manner for a headache, a fillet is bound tightly across the forehead.

These people, like most other savages, recover in a most surprising manner from wounds and other injuries which would probably prove fatal to a European.
The chief complaint to which they are subject is a mild form of ophthalmia, with which I once saw three-fourths of the natives about the settlement affected in one or both eyes; they themselves attributed this affection to the lurgala, or cashew-nut, then in season, the acrid oil in the husk of which had reached their eyes.
BURIAL CEREMONIES.
On the death of any one of the natives, the relatives give utterance to their grief in loud cries, sobs, and shrieks, continued to exhaustion.
Some cut their bodies and tear their hair, and the women paint their faces with broad white bands.

The body is watched by night, and the appearance of the first falling-star is hailed with loud shouts and waving of fire-brands, to drive off the yumburbar, an evil spirit which is the cause of all deaths and other calamities, and feeds on the entrails of the newly dead.