Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/621

IX ground. No tooth was knocked out by the Northern Kamilaroi, but was by the blacks of Maitland and Newcastle.

The Kamilaroi tribe at the Gwydir River used a bull-roarer made of Brigalow wood, or the Brimble, and it is said to be about eight inches long by four wide. A sinew is tied to it, or sometimes put through a hole in the small end. The young of both sexes are forbidden to eat of the following foods: snakes, emu eggs, body of lace-lizard (they might eat the tail), honey from a gum-tree, and some other things.

I am unable to say where it is that the ceremonies of the Bora type are replaced, by others, but it probably is where the Kamilaroi class system ends with the Bigambul, and is replaced by those of the Ungorri and Emon tribes. This is somewhere about the Condamine River.

The ceremonies of the tribes of Southern Queensland, which are held at the great tribal meetings, for instance at the triennial harvest of the fruit of the Bunya trees, may be illustrated by those of the Turrbal tribe, and of the tribes within a radius of fifty miles of Maryborough. I take the former in the first place.

The Turrbal represented a large group of allied tribes, and occupied country on the Brisbane River. It is now extinct; but in 1852 it numbered about four hundred men and women.

The initiation ceremonies are called Kurbin-aii, and the youths admitted thereby to the status of manhood are called Kippur. Several tribes assembled at these ceremonies. The old men fixed the time for holding them when there was plenty of food, as when the sea-mullet came in, or when the fruit of the Bunya-bunya was ripe. Messengers were sent to the various tribes which attended the Kurbin-aii; for instance, tribes came from Maryborough and from Ipswich, and brought with them new songs to teach to the others at the festivities attending the ceremonies.