Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/667

IX uniformity of belief and of practice, is the fact that men come from a wide radius of country to the ceremonies, under what may be called a ceremonial armistice. The component parts of the several tribes which thus meet together are each, in their furthest limits, in contact with still more distant tribes, with whom they intermarry. I have referred to instances of a contingent from a distant locality being accompanied by people of another tribe, friendly to them, but strangers to the tribe which has convened the ceremonies. It is certain that in each contingent there will be leading men, probably medicine-men, who will take part with their fellows in the ceremonies they have come to see. When they return, they carry with them the sacred mysteries of this tribe, and will be able to introduce such new beliefs or procedure as may have recommended itself to them, and they may on their part have contributed something to those they visited. The effect of this intercourse, even if slight, must be to produce uniformity in the procedure of the ceremonies; and the period during which this may have been going on is not to be measured in years, that is, in view of the long-continuing isolation of the Australian aborigines, from any material outside influence. The fact that the ceremonies are the same in principle, even where they vary in practice, seems to me to strongly confirm the theory which I have suggested.

Such are the views which I have formed as to the initiation ceremonies of the eastern type. In the next chapter I shall consider those which form the western type. For the present I may point out the apparent range of the several classes of ceremonies, which constitute the two types, namely, those which have the rites of circumcision, with or without subincision, and those which are without them.

(1) Ceremonies like the Kuringal, Burbung, and Bora, which are characterised by the removal of a tooth, obtain in the extreme south-eastern part of the continent.

(2) The Dora ceremonies of the Maryborough (Queensland) tribes apparently indicate the character of those of the north-east part of Australia.