Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/241

Rh Novitt: "If a woman were to see these things or hear what we tell the boys, I would kill her." I think we know in Europe more about it than any Australian woman. Everything which the initiated possess, becomes sacred from the touch of women; even the bird hit by their waddies, or the kangaroo speared by their spear, even when these instruments are used by other hands than their own, is forbidden to all females. When admitted by the old men into the community, the young man no longer lives in the same camp with his parents and sisters, but in special encampment. (3) The youth is placed in a position of actual scarcity and isolation, stays away for months seeking for them, and goes through much fasting and privations. This is yet rational from the standpoint of the aims of the initiation. But there are many absurdities. The hairs, especially those of approaching puberty, are pulled out; the stages of the ceremony are named in a corresponding manner, i. e., plucked cheek. After all the boy is submitted to certain operations; fingers are cut off, teeth spat out, the circumcision is practised. The circumcision has a severe character. Yet one absurdity more: among Dieri tribes the youth, after the terrible rite of the Australian circumcision is permitted to appear before women without wearing anything to hide his person. (4) Only old male people direct the ceremony. There are remarkable peculiarities. In the Lincoln port tribe, during the performance of the rite of circumcision, the old people grow angry against the youth, stamp, throw the dust into the air, bite their beards, swing the youth with such fury as if they intend to dash it, but in the same time they assure the boy all the while, that they mean no harm. Among the tribes of Parkunji and Burgyarlee, some old men visit the youth's camp, where they meet some younger men, who arrange themselves in a row in front of the youth; they ridicule and insult them, until the old men get into a rage and throw sand in their own faces and then throw fighting sticks or boomerangs at the young men. The old men then rush forward at the young men, who seize and throw them on the ground, after which the old men retire to the camp, but return later and dance with the youth and his companions, repeating their friendly visits until the end of the ceremony.