Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/643

IX west, and by the Australian Alps and their spurs in the north and east, were very much isolated from the tribes beyond those boundaries.

The word Jeraeil means leafy, or having leaves or twigs, being connected with Jerung, a "branch" or "twig." It is therefore analogous to the Murring word Kuringal, which may be translated as "of the forest."

At the Jeraeil which I attended, and which I am about to describe, the old men had decided that, being short-handed, the Krauatun Headman and one other should be permitted to help. This distinction between the words "help" and "participate" marks the fact that neither of these men had been formally initiated, that is to say, they had not passed through the stages of Tutnurring and Brewit to Jeraeil. Moreover, although the Kurnai were short-handed on this occasion, and had only six boys to be initiated, they absolutely refused to allow any half-castes even to be present, giving as their reason, "these half-castes have nothing to do with us." This is a well-marked illustration of the view by this tribe as to the derivation of the child.

All the Kurnai being assembled, the Headmen decide when the ceremonies shall commence. In the Jeraeil which I attended the ceremonies were, according to the statements of the old men who conducted them, the exact reproduction of the Jeraeil of their fathers, at which they themselves had been initiated, and made the depositaries of the ancestral knowledge. After the occupation of Gippsland by the white people in 1842, these ceremonies were held at intervals for some twenty years. They then fell into disuse, and were only now revived in response to the message which I had sent round. The old men said they were glad to receive my message, and to hold the Jeraeil, for the reason that the Kurnai youth "were now growing wild. They had been too much with the whites, so that now they paid no attention