56 MATHEWS — INITIATION IN AUSTRALIAN TRIBES. [March 18, 



such like. Every aboriginal camp is kept free from excrementitious 

 matter. When the people go out to attend to any necessity of 

 nature, they at once make a hole in the ground and cover the 

 deposit over with earth. 



In close proximity to the camp is the burbling or public ring, 

 bounded by a low earthen embankment, with a narrow sunken 

 pathway called maro^ leading about four or five hundred yards into 

 the forest to another circular space, formed in the same manner, 

 known as the eeteemat, in the floor of which the butts of two sap- 

 lings are firmly inserted, having the rooty ends upwards. These 

 inverted stumps are called warringooringa, and are prepared in the 

 way described in my papers dealing with initiation ceremo- 

 nies elsewhere.^ The maro enters both the circles through 

 a narrow opening left in the embankment, and the latter is 

 continued outward a few feet along either side of the path where 

 it meets the rings. Within the eeteemat there are also sometimes 

 two, and sometimes four, heaps of earth, about a foot and a half or 

 two feet high. 



Around the outside of the eeteemat and along both sides of the 

 pathway referred to, there are a number of trees marked with the 

 usual moombeera devices, as well as the outlines of an iguana, a 

 squirrel, the new moon and other figures, all chopped into the bark 

 with a tomahawk. On one side of the path are some tracks of an 

 emu's foot, cut into the surface of the ground a few feet apart, as if 

 made by that animal running along. These tracks lead away some 

 distance into the adjacent bush, forming a sort of curve or semi- 

 circle around the eeteemat ; and on following them up they are found 

 to terminate at the prone figure of an emu, ngooroon, formed by 

 heaping up the loose earth into the required shape. All over the 

 body of the emu thus drawn in high relief small twigs of the oak or 

 wattle tree are closely inserted to represent the feathers of the bird. 

 All the sticks and loose rubbish are scraped off the surface of the 

 ground for several yards around this figure, for the purpose of danc- 

 ing on. 



Approaching the eeteemat, near one side of the pathway, there is 

 a low mound of earth about a foot high. This is called kooroor- 

 ballunga, and a fire is lit on top of it during the time that any per- 



^" The Bora of the Kamilaroi Tribes," jfotirn. Anthrop. Inst., xxv, 325. 

 '-* The fronds or leaves of these trees bear some resemblance to the emu's 

 feathers. 



