Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/595

IX The ceremony of knocking out the tooth is fully described. The gums were lanced with the bone which the night before had been apparently produced from his inward parts by the Carrahdis. The tooth was extracted by means of a wooden chisel made from a piece of a spear-thrower, a large stone being used to strike with. The gum was closed by the boy's friends, who equipped him in the style in which he was to appear for some days. A girdle was tied round his waist, in which was stuck a boomerang. A head-band was tied on, in which were stuck slips of the grass-tree. The mouth was to be kept shut and the left hand was placed over it, and for that day he was not to eat.

During the whole operation the assistants made the most hideous noise in the ears of the patients, who made it a point of honour to bear the pain without a murmur. The blood that issued from the lacerated gum was not wiped away, but suffered to run down the breast, and fall upon the head of the man on whose shoulders the patient sat, and whose name was added to his.

Collins says that the boys were also called Ke-ba-ra, which has reference in the construction of the "singular instrument" used on this occasion, Kebar signifying a rock or stone. He does not explain what the singular instrument was, but I assume it was the stone used for striking the chisel.

The extracted tooth would be, it may be inferred from the context, sent to the Cam-mer-ray tribe, who it is said in one place had the privilege of calling the people together for these ceremonies, and also "to extract a tooth from the natives of the other tribes inhabiting the sea-coast."

In connection with the ceremonies of the Geawe-gal tribe of the Hunter River, a wooden booming instrument was whirled round at the end of a cord. It was used then, and then only. A particular coo-ee and a particular reply to it, were made known to the young men when they were initiated. Among the symbols used were the form of the