Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/587

IX It is the evil magic of the Budjan that in great measure commands obedience, but there is also the belief that the Gommera can see in dreams the actions of the novices, and punish them by Joïa. In the old times a novice, known to have broken the food rules after initiation, would have been killed by violence.

The strictness with which these food rules are observed by the old men affords a measure of their force in the olden times. The old man whom I have mentioned as the Wolgal singer, and who seemed to be about seventy years of age, told me, when we were speaking of these rules, that he had never eaten of the flesh of the emu. He said that he had never been made free of its flesh, by some one stealthily rubbing a piece of it, or the fat, on his mouth.

When the Gommeras are satisfied that the youth is fit to take his place in the tribe, he is allowed to return. In one case known to me, it was between five and six months before the old men were satisfied as to this. For some reason they were dissatisfied with the novices, and after a meeting was held of the old men, some of them went out to and told the novices that they must not let the women see them stripped of their rugs for some months after coming in.

After the novice is allowed to come into the camp, and till he is permitted to marry, the Gommeras can order him to do things for them, and he obeys them.

The ceremonies being now completed, there remained nothing for the people to do but gradually to return to their own districts. The tooth would be carried by the Gommera of the place most distant from that of the youth it belonged to. He would then send or hand it to the Headman of the locality next to him, and thus it would pass from group to group of the inter-marrying community which had attended the Kuringal. It conveys its message, which is that so-and-so has been made a man. Finally it returns to its owner.

I took on myself, as being in their eyes a "Gommera of the Kurnai," and as having joined in causing the Kuringal to be held, to carry off two of the teeth, which were fastened