These Baetyli were stones of a round form, they were supposed to be animated by means of magical incantations, with a portion of the Deity; they were consulted on occasions of great and pressing emergency as a kind of divine oracle, and were suspended either round the neck or some other part of the body.

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That this veneration for certain pieces of quartz or crystal is common over a very great portion of the continent is evident from the following extracts from Threlkeld’s Vocabulary, page 88: 

Mur-ra-mai:  The name of a round ball, about the size of a cricket-ball, which the Aborigines carry in a small net suspended from their girdles of opossum yarn.  The women are not allowed to see the internal part of the ball; it is used as a talisman against sickness, and it is sent from tribe to tribe for hundreds of miles on the sea-coast, and in the interior; one is now here from Moreton Bay, the interior of which a black showed me privately in my study, betraying considerable anxiety lest any female should see its contents.

After unrolling many yards of woollen cord made from the fur of the opossum, the contents proved to be a quartz-like substance of the size of a pigeon’s egg, he allowed me to break it and retain a part.  It is transparent like white sugar-candy; they swallow the small crystalline particles which crumble off as a preventative of sickness.  It scratches glass, and does not effervesce with acids.  From another specimen the stone appears to be agate of a milky hue, semi-pellucid, and strikes fire.  The vein from which it appears broken off is one inch and a quarter thick.  A third specimen contains a portion of cornelian, partially crystallized, a fragment of chalcedony, and a fragment of a crystal of white quartz.

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And again in Mitchell’s Expeditions into Australia, volume 2 page 338:  In these girdles the men, and especially their coradjes or priests, frequently carry crystals of quartz or other shining stones, which they hold in high estimation, and very unwillingly show to anyone; invariably taking care, when they do unfold them, that no woman shall see them.

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FORMS ON MAKING VOWS AND PLEDGES.

Genesis chapter 24 verse 9.  And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and swore to him concerning that matter.

This is exactly the form that is observed in South-western Australia, when the natives swear amity to one another, or pledge themselves to aid one another in avenging a death.

One native remains seated on the ground with his heels tucked under him, in the Eastern manner; the one who is about to narrate a death to him approaches slowly and with averted face, and seats himself cross-legged upon the thighs of the other; they are thus placed thigh to thigh, and squeezing their bodies together they place breast to breast.  Both then avert their faces, their eyes frequently fill with tears, no single word is spoken; and the one who is seated uppermost places his hands under the thighs of his friend; having remained thus seated for a minute or two he rises up and withdraws to a little distance without speaking, but an inviolable pledge to avenge the death has by this ceremony passed between the two.