Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/560

534 look at those old men! when you get back to the camp go and do like that, and play with the little children—Yah!"

After a march of another quarter of a mile there was another halt. Some of the old men came out of the scrub with boughs held round their heads representing a mob of bullocks, and went through some absurd antics to make the boys laugh at their child's play. But the boys, having been warned by their Kabos, looked on with the utmost stolidity.

From here we marched slowly up the mountain side, until at another little level a third halt was made. Here the second stage was marked by all the men rubbing themselves with powdered charcoal, making themselves almost unrecognisable. The use of powdered charcoal in this manner seems to have a very general application in these ceremonies and in other tribes to magic, as for instance the Bunjil-barn among the Kurnai.

This interlude was an amusing one. The men, led by Umbara, pretended to be a team of working bullocks. Each man held a stick by both hands over his neck to represent a yoke, and the team danced slowly among the trees, past the boys with ludicrous gestures. Thence a further march was made, the men making laughable remarks to the boys, such as "You can go home now—Yah! We are going to the sea-shore to get oysters—Yah!"

On the summit of the hill there was another halt, and here was the first magic dance. The boys and their Kabos stood in a row and the men danced in a circle before them, shouting the name for "legs." This kind of dance is merely jumping round in a circle, with the legs wide apart and the arms stretched straight downwards swinging across each other in front, the word being loudly uttered, rhythmically with the body movement. After doing this for a minute or two, the circle of dancers opened, and joined on to the end of the line of Kabos and novices, the whole then forming a new circle. One of the Gommeras darted into this enclosed space, and danced the magic dance. This is done as if sitting almost on the heels, but the knees are widely apart, and the two hands are extended downwards until the fingers almost touch