Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/590

564 at some distance. Huts are made at a little distance from the mound, in which the boys and their mothers sit. When the ceremonies commence, in the same manner as with the Coast Murring, the boys are placed on the mound before a great fire, and behind each boy stands his mother. All the other women are at the camp covered with boughs and skin rugs, or blankets, as the case may be. The principal medicine-man, or, in the instance which Yibai described to me, the two medicine-men, stood just inside the ring, a little way from the fire, but so as to be able to prevent the boys from shifting before the medicine-men think they have been sufficiently put to the test.

The dances described when speaking of the Kuringal of the Yuin were used here, and the novices were attended by their Jambis, who are in the same relation to the boys as the Kabos are in the Yuin.

The boys are covered with rugs in the same manner as at the Kuringal, and are led along the path to the small enclosure, where there are the same figures and emblems as described for the Bunan, and the saplings along the path are bent down to form arches, under which the boys have to stoop or even crawl, to make them obedient. The magic dances are those described, and in the small enclosure two holes are dug in which the novice stands when his tooth is knocked out by one of the medicine-men. During this operation the men sing in a loud voice to make the tooth come out easily. If the tooth holds fast, the old men say it is because the boys have had improper relations with the women.

The ceremonies last for three or four days, during which the songs and dances are the same as at the Kuringal. The novices are instructed by their Jambis, and admonished to obey the rules laid down for their conduct. They are also told about Tharamulun, and that he watches what men do.

The novices are forbidden to eat opossum, bandicoot, and, above all, emu eggs. They are told that if they eat forbidden food they will become ill by the magic of the creature eaten. But they are allowed to eat kangaroo, ring-tail opossum, fish, and other things.