An Aboriginal medicine man or shaman from the Kakadu tribe sucking the illness from a patient. Process print after B. Spencer, 1914.

1914

1 process print ; image 11.5 x 19.8 cm

Good wizard of the Kakadu tribe sucking evil magic from a sick man. ... Photo, Mr. Baldwin Spencer, from "Handbook for Australia 1914". Lettering continues: "All maladies are thought by the aborigines to be caused by hostile witchcraft, usually an invisible poison bone or stick, "sent" by an enemy. For curative treatment, the patient lies down, and a tribal wizard gazes fixedly at him, thus projecting unseen crystals of power into him. Then stretched upon the sufferer, he massages him, and, with much effort, sucks the poison bone out of him, invisibly, bit by bit."

Wellcome Collection 21343i