Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/258

 coloured with very pale yellow ochre, instead of the usual deep red, whilst their hair is drawn up and crowned by the high top-knots of grass, resembling nodding plumes, which ornament is, I think, peculiar to the blacks north of the Hunter,—at least, I have never seen it farther south, where the hair is usually matted with gum, and decorated with dogs' tails and teeth. After all the preliminaries are settled, and the surrounding tribes arrived, the blacks repair to the Cawarra ground. This is a circular plot about thirty feet in diameter, carefully levelled, weeded, and smoothed down. It is, in general, situated on the summit of some round-topped hill, and the surrounding trees are minutely tatooed [sic] and carved to such a considerable altitude, that one cannot help feeling astonished at the labour bestowed upon this work. The women are now dismissed to the distance of two miles from the Cawarra ground; for if one of them should happen to witness, or hear any portion of the ceremony, they would be immediately put to death. The first evening is passed in dancing the ordinary corroberree; during which, the invited blacks sit round their respective fires as spectators, whilst the boys, who are to undergo the ceremony, squat down in a body by themselves, and keep up a bright fire for the dancers. From the repugnance which the blacks at the MacLeay displayed on my looking at their performance, and their angry refusal to allow me to see the main part of the ceremony, I am unable to