Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/683

X several months after the operation, no woman, excepting immediately after the ceremony, is supposed to have a sight of him. On the night preceding the circumcision the women see him, or he is shown to them, for a few minutes. At this time all the available tribes-people are collected, and for the time there is unrestricted intercourse between those who are in the relation of Pirrauru to each other. Nothing is said of this at the time, but it may cause sanguinary quarrels afterwards. It is not spoken of at the ceremony, because those who may be jealous dare not show their feeling at the Karaweli-wonkana, lest it should be said that they are attempting to undermine and tamper with the old-established customs.

Immediately before a boy is circumcised, a young man picks up a handful of sand and sprinkles it as he runs round the outside of the camp. This is to keep out Kutchi and to keep in the Mura-mura of the ceremonies.

It is the Kami and the Kadi who lead away the boy after he is circumcised. The Neyi and the Kaka provide him with food, and later on accompany him. Above all, however, they must be elder people, so that their teaching shall be respected. For this reason, elder rather than younger members of the relationship group are preferred.

As soon as the rite has been performed the boy's father stoops over him, and gives him a new name. This name has been invented by him long before, when the boy was much younger. It might be that when he was lying ill and in pain, he said something to his wife, using the child-name of his son. She repeating what he has said, he adds to it something more, now using the Matteri-tali, or man's name, of his son, which his wife now hears for the first time. If he feared that he was going to die, he would hand over the name to his brother, the Ngaperi-waka, or little father, own or tribal, of his son. This is in order that he may be able to announce the boy's new name when he is circumcised. Such a name, so given to a man in charge, would be kept as a sacred trust.

Such a name is taken from the legend of the boy's