Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/663

IX down the river, and now, being led by their Bullawangs, followed up the winding bed of the creek in single file, and out of sight, until within a hundred yards of where the mothers stood. As they came up, each woman stooped to drink, and her son splashed the water over her with a stick which he held in his hand. She, appearing enraged, filled her mouth with water several times, and squirted it over his face and head. The novices then walked off to the young men's camp, and the women went to their own. One of them was crying at the loss of her son.

Though the "Water Ceremony" ends the Jeraeil, it does not terminate the probation which the youths have to undergo. They must spend a time, which may be of months' duration, away from their friends under the charge of their Bullawangs in the bush. In short, they must remain away gaining their own living, learning lessons of self-control, and being instructed in the manly duties of the Kurnai, until the old men are satisfied that they are sufficiently broken in to obedience, and may be trusted to return to the community. In the present instance, the old men had determined at the Jeraeil that the novices should remain at least a month away, for the reason that, as they expressed it, having been so much with the whites the lads had "gone wild." However, I have heard since that they relented, and permitted the youths to return at an earlier date. Under the strict rules of the olden time this would not have been the case. An old man said to me, "It is not much use forbidding them to eat things. They can get plenty of food—the Jeraeil has nothing to do with beef and damper."

The particulars given in this chapter as to the initiation ceremonies of the tribes of the south-eastern quarter of Australia, although scanty and incomplete in many cases, will suffice to show with sufficient clearness the principles on which they rest, and the procedure by which they are carried out.

Four principal forms of the ceremonies may be distinguished: the Kuringal of the tribes of the south coast of New South Wales; the Burbung of the Wiradjuri of