Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/343

VI part that in this tribe the women take part in the initiation ceremonies up to a certain point.

When Gippsland was settled in 1842, there were two principal Headmen who were recognised as their Gweraeil-kurnai, or Great Men. One lived in the northern and the other in the southern part of the district. These men were the recognised leaders. One was a great fighting-man; the other less so, but he was also a great medicine-man. There were also Gweraeil-kurnai in the local divisions, and it is significant that some of these men gave their names to the divisions, of which they were respectively the Headmen. This may be seen on inspection of the table of clans in Chapter II.

How a man gradually increased in influence as he increased in years is shown by the case of the last Gweraeil-kurnai. He was the man Bunbra, whom I shall mention when speaking of the expiatory combats later on in this chapter. I watched this man's career during many years. Since the time of the expiatory combat, in which he was the defendant, the old men, who were successively the leaders of the people, had died off, until Bunbra came to be the oldest man left. The name by which, apart from his English name, he was known, is Jetbolan, or the Liar; but, by reason of age, he finally became the Gweraeil-kurnai. During the same time Tulaba, the tribal son of the former great Headman Bruthen-munji, had also grown into age, and much consideration attached to him in his twofold character, as one of the elders and as being a worthy son of the former Headman. During this time the pressure of our civilisation had broken down the tribal organisation; the white man's vices, which the Kurnai had acquired, had killed off a great number, the remainder had mostly been gathered into the mission-stations, and only a few still wandered over their ancestral hunting-grounds, leading their old lives in some measure, and having apparently abandoned their ancestral customs. When, however, it was decided that the Jeraeil ceremony should be revived for the instruction of their young men, I observed with much interest, that the old tribal organisation arose again, so to say, out of the dust, and