105. Throughout the Boulia District all Seed-Food has the generic term of pap-pa applied to it: the following, with their Pitta-Pitta names, unless otherwise stated, are some of the varieties utilised.

106. The ya-ra-ka “star-grass” (Eleusine œgyptiaca, Pers.). A sufficient quantity having been collected—a woman always preparing all plant food—it is more or less broken up with the hands, next brushed into a heap, and then put into a circular hole in the ground (Fig. 214). Within this hole, about 12 inches in diameter and 7 or 8 in depth, the woman stands: pressing alternately one foot upon the other (Fig. 215) she exerts a sort of rotary motion into which she throws all her weight, with the result that the grass upon which she treads becomes more and more disintegrated, the seed itself gradually working its way to the bottom. To throw all her weight upon the legs, she either supports herself on a sort of tripod of forked sticks erected in front of her, or else, when it happens to be handy, some low-lying limb of a tree. From the hole the seed is transferred to a koolamon, any of the larger sprigs, &c., are removed with the fingers, and the rest winnowed with the breath or a current of air: it is now clean enough and ready for grinding on the pappa-stone (sect. 154).