Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/662

636 In this way the youths were made for ever free of the flesh of the kangaroo. It was explained to me that this ceremony is a most important one; for, were it not carried out, the youth would never be able lawfully to eat the flesh of the male kangaroo, as the necessary qualification can be acquired in no other way than by eating the flesh in common with all the men who are present at the Jeraeil.

After this the boys were dressed as men, with a red forehead-band, a nose-peg, reed necklace, armlets, and with their faces marked with naial—that is, red ochre.

The Water Ceremony.—After the "ghosts" had killed and eaten their kangaroo, the novices retired in company with their Bullawangs and some other men. All the rest of the people also left the camp, and went by another route to the place where the final ceremony was to take place. This ceremony is public; and not only are the women present, but the novices also, who, after it, become Jeraeil, and no longer Tutnurring, stop in the young men's camp for the day, or until their guardians are ready to take them away.

This final rite, which is the termination of the Jeraeil, was on the banks of a rather deep dry creek, running through the level country near the Thompson River. The mothers of the novices stood in the bed of the dry creek, each having a vessel full of water before her on the ground. The novices had encamped the night before some miles away