FL661407

Still the women know to do a kind of [crossed out: knitting] netting very
neatly with a sort of wooden crochet needdle and spin the
yarn first from oppossum wool or also from the bark of the [indecipherable] with a piece of wood
acting as a spindle. They often knit little bags and
longer pieces of knitting serve as a kind of bandage
round the head to keep the hair together. Some of the
weapons too, such as the well known boomerang (or Wamara as it
is called here) [word crossed out] and the shield & others are occasionally
nicely shaped smoothed & carved. Their original
cutting instrument is a hard stone, often a black
flint ground down on another stone into the
shape of an axe or hatchet to which they sometimes
[word crossed out] manage to fasten a wooden handle. But of
course it was a wearisome task to cut with such
a tool & here they delight to get a tomahawk
from Europeans.
One of the worst features [words crossed out] in their natural
character is almost the utter absence of
a feeling of shame, there are here & there slight
exceptions, but too often they [word crossed out] are seen
in a perfect state of nudity or generally nearly
so. They are rather generous towards each
other, when they can afford it, sharing their food &
too often even their few articles of [word crossed out]
clothing. In fact this propensity renders them
quite amusing especially after they first try
European clothes. You may give one of them an old coat
in the morning, after a few hours it may have changed
several owners, perhaps towards evening more than
a dozen have sported with it. I may here add that