A black woman's needle was a
little bone from the leg of an emu, pointed. Her thread was sinews of
opossums, kangaroos, and emus; that was all that was necessary for her
plain sewing, which was plain indeed.
Her fancy work consisted of netting dillee, goolays, or miniature
hammocks to sling her baby across her back, or, failing a baby, her
mixed possessions, from food to feathers; her larder and wardrobe in
one.
Her costume being simple in the extreme did not require much room. It
consisted of a goomillah, which was a string wound round the waist,
made of opossum sinews, and in front, hanging down for about a foot,
were twisted strands of opossum hair. A bone, or on state occasions a
green twig, stuck through the cartilage of her nose, a string net over
her hair, or perhaps only a fillet, or a kangaroo's tooth fastened to
her front lock, gum balls dried on side-locks, an opossum's hair
armlet, and perhaps a reed bead necklet and a polished black skin,
toilette complete, unless for certain ceremonies a further decoration
of flowers or down feathers was required.
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