Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/619

IX east Australia. The Burbung extends from Wentworth eastward to the boundary of the Kamilaroi tribes, and from the southern boundaries of the Baraba-baraba tribe to the extreme waters of the Macquarie River. The Kuringal, which is practically the same as the Burbung, extends certainly, although under a different name, from Twofold Bay along the coast to Port Stephens. Thence it appears to range to the Hastings River, and the ceremonies of the Chepara tribe show some marked resemblances to it. These ceremonies extend inland to varying distances. Roughly speaking, it may be said that in the south they join the Burbung of the Wiradjuri, then farther northward the ceremonies of the Kamilaroi, which are known as the Bora. As, however, the Bora is based upon similar principles with the Burbung, in which Baiaime is the central figure of magical tradition and power, it will be found when the two types of ceremony, the Burbung and the Bora, are critically compared that they are substantially the same, differing merely in what I may perhaps be permitted to speak of as ritual.

One thing is quite clear to me, namely, that a man who has been initiated in the ceremonies either of the Kuringal, the Burbung, or the Bora, would be accepted as one of the initiated by any one of them if he could make himself known to the tribes-people in question. My own experience is in point. Thrice I have met blacks who were strangers to me, but who, after I had satisfied them that I was one of the initiated, have at once accepted me in that character as to their own ceremonies.

I have no personal knowledge of the Bora ceremonies of the Kamilaroi tribes, but from what I have learned they resemble those of the Wiradjuri.

The following particulars relate to the Bora as it was about the year 1830. Any section of a tribe might hold a Bora. The fathers of families, say at Murrurundi, might tell their Headman that they had sons ready to be initiated, and he would order the Bora to be held. It took place at