her away from the camp to some secluded spot, where she digs a circular hole in the sandy soil under the shade of a tree.  In this hole the girl squats with crossed legs and is covered with sand from the waist downwards.  A digging-stick is planted firmly in the sand on each side of her, and the place is surrounded by a fence of bushes except in front, where her mother kindles a fire.  Here the girl stays all day, sitting with her arms crossed and the palms of her hands resting on the sand.  She may not move her arms except to take food from her mother or to scratch herself; and in scratching herself she may not touch herself with her own hands, but must use for the purpose a splinter of wood, which, when it is not in use, is stuck in her hair.  She may speak to nobody but her mother; indeed nobody else would think of coming near her.  At evening she lays hold of the two digging-sticks and by their help frees herself from the superincumbent weight of sand and returns to the camp.  Next morning she is again buried in the sand under the shade of the tree and remains there again till evening.  This she does daily for five days.  On her return at evening on the fifth day her mother decorates her with a waist-band, a forehead-band, and a necklet of pearl-shell, ties green parrot feathers round her arms and wrists and across her chest, and smears her body, back and front, from the waist upwards with blotches of red, white, and yellow paint.  She has in like manner to be buried in the sand at her second and third menstruations, but at the fourth she is allowed to remain in camp, only signifying her condition by wearing a basket of empty shells on her back.[103] Among the Kia blacks of the Prosperine River, on the east coast of Queensland, a girl at puberty has to sit or lie down in a shallow pit away from the camp; a rough hut of bushes is erected over her to protect her from the inclemency of the weather.  There she stays for about a week, waited on by her mother and sister, the only persons to whom she may speak.  She is allowed to drink water, but may not touch it with her hands; and she may scratch herself a little with a mussel-shell.  This seclusion is repeated at her second and third monthly periods, but when the third is over she is brought to her husband bedecked with savage finery.  Eagle-hawk or cockatoo feathers are stuck in her hair:  a shell hangs over her forehead:  grass bugles encircle her neck and an apron of opossum skin her waist:  strings are tied to her arms and wrists; and her whole body is mottled with patterns drawn in red, white, and yellow pigments and charcoal.[104]

[Seclusion of girls at puberty in the islands of Torres Straits.]