70 MATHEWS — INITIATIOX IX AUSTRALIAX TRIBES. [March IS, 



these incantations are for the purpose of making a plentiful supply 

 of game, or to cause them to be victorious over their enemies. The 

 men are painted in the manner customary on these expeditions. 

 After traveling perhaps several miles they come to a water-hole or 

 running stream, where a halt is made. The novices are now taken 

 charge of by the men who have been appointed for this duty. 

 Each of these men is the brother-in-law — actually or collaterally — 

 of the graduate who has been placed under his care. 



The novices are stripped naked, and after being painted are 

 placed sitting cross-legged on the ground, with both hands grasping 

 their genitalia and their heads bowed toward their breasts. Their 

 guardians and some of their relatives remain with them, but all the 

 other men go away, taking their departure quietly and a few at a 

 time so that the boys may not know that they are gone. These 

 men go away to a suitable camping ground, perhaps a mile or two 

 distant, which has previously been agreed upon, and there they 

 erect a camp of bark or bushes and spread leaves on the ground for 

 the novices to lie upon. They then go into the bush hunting to 

 provide food for themselves and the rest of the party. Late in the 

 afternoon the guardians and other men who remained with the 

 novices bring the latter to this new camp — each boy with his eyes 

 cast down and being forbidden to look at anything around him — 

 and place them lying down upon the leaves with rugs thrown over 

 them. Fires are lit near where they are lying, ^ and they are sub- 

 jected to considerable heat, which causes them to perspire very 

 freely, but they are not permitted to move and must keep silent. 



During the evening, perhaps an hour after sundown, by the light 

 of the camp-fires, some of the usual totemic dances, described by me 

 in previous communications, and other instructive performances, are 

 gone through by the men, and the novices are allowed to sit up and 

 look at them. Some of the men exhibit their genitals to the boys 

 and invite them to pay especial attention to a number of other 

 obscene gestures. After this human excrement is thrown to the 

 novices, which they are required to eat, and also to drink urine out 

 of a native vessel. At the conclusion of these proceedings all hands 

 lie down for the night. 



Early next morning about half the men start away without the 

 knowledge of the boys and go into the bush in quest of food. 



^ Compare with the fire ordeal described by me in " The Bunan Ceremony of 

 N. S, Wales," in the American Anthropologist (1S96), Vol. ix, pp. 335, 336. 



