Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/537

IX in the interior, or white settlers who, brought up from childhood in contact with some tribe, came to be regarded as one of themselves, and were therefore permitted to be present at the sacred ceremonies, even if they were not, as happened in some cases, actually initiated in the same manner as the aboriginal youths. Such a case is known to me in New South Wales, in which the white man, having been initiated as a youth, refused persistently to make the ceremonies known to my fellow-worker Dr. Lorimer Fison.

My account will be drawn partly from what I have witnessed and taken part in, as an initiated person, and partly from conversations which I have had with blacks as to the ceremonies of their own tribes. I can rely on these statements, not only being in a position, from my own knowledge, to form an opinion as to their truthfulness, but also because there is, as I have found, between initiated persons, not only no reservation, but a feeling of confidence, I may even say almost of brotherhood. For the sake of comparison, I draw some illustrations from the statements of competent correspondents, and extracts from certain authors, to complete my work.

It is very rarely the case that the initiation ceremonies of a tribe are peculiar to it, and therefore not attended by other neighbouring tribes. Such a case means that the tribe does not intermarry with its neighbours. The Kurnai are such an example, whose Jeraeil ceremonies are attended by four only out of the five clans of the tribe. The fifth clan has no ceremonies of their own, nor did it attend those of any other tribe. But there were in it cases such as that of my messenger to the Yuin who was free of the Ngarigo tribe, because his mother belonged to it, and he himself had been initiated at their Kuringal ceremonies. Another instance of such cases is that of the before-mentioned Yibai-malian, whose father was a renowned "blackfellow doctor" of the Wiradjuri tribe, who joined the Wolgal, with whom he was related by marriage, and then obtained a wife from the Theddora of Omeo. By this he became connected with the Ngarigo through her relations, and thus met the Yuin and became a man of influence in their tribe.