wilgie

alternative wilgee · alternative wilgi

1. AustraliaWesternuncountableA red ochre traditionally used as a pigment by the Aboriginal Nyunga people.

   While she was working Coomal came along with wilgie on his face and embraced her.

   1935 June, Ethel Hassell, D. S. Davidson, “Myths and Folk-Tales of the Wheelman Tribe of South-Western Australia—III”, in Folklore, volume 46, number 2, →JSTOR, page 130

   2 more examples

   […] round these fires were squatted the dark forms of men and women, unclad, save with the loose folds of an opossum rug, and unadorned save with a fish or other bone thrust through the cartilage of the nose, or the pendulums of the ears, and with wilgie and with paint.

   1859, Kinahan Cornwallis, A Panorama of the New World, volume 1, page 183

   A picture of one mourning for her brother shows her hair all screwed up in little knobs with wilgie clay and fat.

   1902, May Vivienne, Travels in Western Australia […], page 56