Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/612

586 Finally there is the figure of the emu where it fell when he killed it.

At each of these stages there is a magic dance in which the medicine-men, who are rubbed over with powdered charcoal, exhibit their powers and show things which they appear to bring up from their insides. At the figure of Daramulun a special song is called Wondung.

At the most sacred of all these places, namely the Gumbu, there is the magic fire called Gudji-wirri, which is one of the words which it is not lawful to speak out of the Burbung ground, the common term for fire being we. The medicine-men and the other men dance at the Gudji-wirri, and these dances are also called Wondung.

During this time the two guardians have been instructing the boy in his duties: not to take notice of anything that is done to him or to show surprise or fear at anything, not to tell lies or to play with children, but to behave himself as becomes a man. Above all, not to go near women, and especially not to reveal anything that he has seen or heard at the Burbung, under pain of being killed.

At the place where the tooth is knocked out the boy is placed with his feet in two holes. One of his guardians stands behind him and holds him fast by the arms, which are placed down his sides, while the other stands at his right side and holds his head back, so that his eyes look upwards and he cannot see what goes on. In front and all round are the medicine-men dancing quite naked. Some old medicine-man pushes the gums back from the upper incisor of the central pair, and placing his lower incisors against it, he jerks it violently upwards. If it will not come out without being punched out, it is said that the boy has been too much with the women and played too much with the little girls.

Murri-kangaroo said that his tooth came out at the first jerk, but that of the boy next to him had to be knocked out by the medicine-man, who some time before at the camp had looked earnestly at him and said, "You have been too much with the women, and some of their Gumilga (waist fringe) has got into you." He then rubbed the boy's legs and