Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/259

 give a regular account of it, having only been able to obtain occasional glimpses. After many preliminary grotesque mummeries have been performed, the doctors or priests of the tribe take each a boy, and hold him for some time with his head downwards near the fire. Afterwards, with great solemnity, they are invested with the opossum belt; and at considerable intervals between each presentation, they are given the nulla-nulla, the boomerang, the spear, &c. Whilst these arms are being conferred upon them, the other natives perform a sham fight, and pretend to hunt the pademella, spear fish, and imitate various other occupations, in which the weapons, now presented to the youth, will be of service. As these ceremonies occupied a fortnight or more before they were concluded, many other ridiculous scenes were undoubtedly enacted, and during all this time, the women did not dare to approach the performers. Each man was also provided with a singular instrument, formed of a piece of hollowed wood fastened to a long piece of flax string; by whirling this rapidly round their heads, a loud shrill noise was produced, and the blacks seemed to attach a great degree of mystic importance to the sound of this instrument, for they told me, that if a woman heard it, she would die. The conclusion of this ceremony, was a grand dance of a peculiar character, in which the boys join, and which the women are allowed to see. This dance is performed with much more solemnity than the ordinary