Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/658

632 their camp while he is about, lest he should kill them with his spears.

This "frightening the women" by the Bullawangs and the newly-initiated youths is done by walking slowly round the encampment at such a distance that there is no chance of their being seen, or their movements through bushes and over logs being heard by the women and children. They swing their bull-roarers as they go. Tundun is thus supposed by the women and children to be walking round the camp before returning to the place whence he came. At the Jeraeil I am describing the novices thoroughly entered into the fun of frightening the women; and, having got over their awe of the bull-roarers, they made an outrageous noise with them. The moment the roaring and screeching sounds were heard there was a terrible clamour of cries and screams from the women and children, to the delight of the novices, who now in their turn aided in mystifying the uninitiated. It sometimes happens that during this nocturnal perambulation one of the bull-roarers becomes detached from its string and is thus lost. If, perchance, it is afterwards picked up by a woman or child, their curiosity is satisfied by the statement that it is a "paddle belonging to Tundun" which he is supposed to have dropped in returning home. The shape of the bull-roarer is much that of the little bark paddle which the Kurnai use when sitting down in their canoes.

"Giving the Boys some Frogs."—After the revelation of the central mysteries of the Jeraeil, the novices being now enrolled among the men, are not kept with such strictness as before. They are allowed to go out in company with their Bullawangs to seek for such animals as are permitted them for food; and this occasion is improved by their mentors, who deliver a peripatetic lecture on their lawful and their forbidden foods. When in camp the instruction continues generally as to the duties now devolving upon them by reason of their having reached manhood. I may now, as at a convenient time, notice what these rules of conduct are—the principal ones at least, for to enumerate them all would require an essay on the tribal and social life of the Kurnai. The youths are instructed: