Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/642

616 usual phrase, has been "too much with the women." This distinction occurs in all cases where the tooth is extracted, but the Jibauk practice of the Jajaurung is the only one I know in which a special treatment follows this social offence. Usually in such cases the tooth ostensibly cannot be removed, and this causes great pain and suffering to the offender. Thus at the Yuin Kuringal the Gommera took good care that the tooth of the novice, who was known for his practices with the women, should only be extracted after a dozen blows. But the Jajaurung went still further: not only did the tooth stick fast, but the novice became a Jibauk, and underwent a series of more than personal inconveniences as a warning to others.

One of the results of the ceremonies of initiation is, in most cases, to place the novice inter alia under intersexual restraints. This is shown by his removal from the "fire circle" of his parents to the camp of the young men, and also the breaking off of the intimate association with his sisters which existed while he was a boy. This is shown very clearly by the Kurnai Jeraeil. The Jibauk practice, as seen among the Jajaurung, appears to have been in the nature of a punishment; with the Wurunjerri it is not so clear, as it applied apparently to all, while with the Bunurong the practice seems not to have existed.

The ceremonies of all these tribes of Victoria seem to me to have been in a state of decadence, and it is difficult to decide from the survivals what their original form may have been.

The initiation ceremonies of the Kurnai were in principle the same as those which I have described as the Bunan, Burbung, and Bora. But in details they differed much from them, either retaining practices which had become obsolete elsewhere, or having developed new details independently. Both, however, may have co-operated in producing the Jeraeil, for the Kurnai, in consequence of their country being shut in by dense scrubs and forests in the