Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/655

IX day following the sleeping ceremony, and while most of the men were out hunting, the Headmen and several others went away to prepare for the great ceremony of the grandfather. The spot chosen was, as I afterwards ascertained, over 2000 paces distant from the camp of the Tutnurring. While sitting there, talking to the Bullawangs, I several times heard the peculiar screech of the "woman Tundun" when the men who were making them tried one to see if it was satisfactory. When they were ready, about an hour before sunset, word was brought to the Bullawangs, who took their charges to the appointed place under the pretext "Let us go for a walk. You must be tired with sitting there all day."

On reaching the place, which was at the edge of an extensive and dense scrub of Ti-tree (Melaleuca), with a little open plain of some fifty acres in front, the novices were halted, and made to kneel down in a row, with their blankets drawn closely over their heads, so as to prevent their seeing anything. One of the Bullawangs knelt before each, and another stood behind. The principal Headman stood near, holding his throwing-stick in his hand. This being arranged satisfactorily, the ceremony commenced. The second Headman emerged from the scrub at about a hundred and fifty yards' distance, holding his bull-roarer, a "man Tundun" in his hand, which he commenced to whirl round, making a dull-sounding roar. The man immediately following him had a "woman Tundun"; and in this way sixteen men came slowly forward, each one, as he came into the open, whirling his instrument and adding to the roaring and screeching din. By the time the last man had marched out into the clear ground, the leader had gained a point on the opposite side of the kneeling Tutnurrings, and the performers then halted in a semicircle, and produced a finale of discordant sounds. When this ceased, the Headman ordered the novices to stand up, and raise their faces towards the sky. Then, pointing upwards with his spear-thrower, the blanket was pulled off the head of each boy by his Bullawang, and the eyes of all the novices being directed to the uplifted throwing-stick, the Headman said, "Look there! Look there! Look there!"