Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/540

514 old men. For distant places two messengers go in company, as far as their roads are the same, and then separate. A messenger is, of course, an initiated man, and is chosen especially as being a good speaker. He carries with him a bull-roarer, which the head Gommera gives him. The points of his message are impressed on his memory, or it is aided by so many strands of a man's kilt, which he carries with him. In addition to the bull-roarer, he also carries, wrapped up in the skin of one of the animals of whose pelts the men's kilts are made, a belt of opossum-fur string, arm bands of ringtail opossum skin, and a forehead band. When he arrives at the place where the Gommera is to whom he is sent, he opens his bundle in the council-place, the Wirri-wirri-than, and there delivers his message, exhibiting to the Gommera the bull-roarer and the other things. Holding the kilt in one hand, he then takes the strings seriatim, and says, "This tail is for so-and-so," naming a Gommera until he has named all of those whom he has to call together. The Gommera then announces the message to the men at the council-place, and after consulting with them, fixes the time when he and his men will start for the appointed place.

The Burbung of the Wiradjuri is analogous to the Bunan of the Yuin, and is called together by the Headman of one of the totems, the message being sent through the totem to the several Headmen of it, in the local divisions, who communicate it to the other men of their localities. It may be noted that in these tribes the class system is in full vigour.

Assuming that the sender of the message is the head of the Yibai-gurimul, that is, of the Yibai sub-class and the