1890.] on Manners and Customs of Torres Straits Islanders. 161 



" Look after your mother and father ; never mind if you and your 

 wife go without." 



" Don't speak bad word to mother." 



" Give half of all your fish to your parents ; don't be mean." 



" Father and mother all along same as food in belly ; when they 

 die you feel hungry and empty." 



" Mind your uncles, too, and cousins." 



" If woman walk along, you no follow ; by and by man look, he 

 call you bad name." 



" If a canoe is going to another place, you go in canoe ; no stop 

 behind to steal woman." 



" If your brother is going out to fight, you help him ; don't let 

 him go first, but go together." 



Who will say, after this, that the Torres Straits Islanders were 

 degraded savages ? 



At length the month of isolation expired, and for the last time 

 the uncle washed the lad ; he then rubbed him with scented leaves, 

 and polished him up with oil. Then he was decorated with armlets 

 and leglets, breast-ornaments, and possibly a belt, his ears orna- 

 mented, and a shell-skewer passed through his nose ; bright-coloured 

 leaves would be inserted in his armlets, and liis hair rolled into the 

 approved string-like ringlets. So they " make him flash — flash like 

 hell— that boy." 



The afternoon of the eventful day was occupied in this congenial 

 task, and at nightfall all the lads who were being initiated were mar- 

 shalled by their uncles behind a large mat, which was held vertically. 

 In this wise they marched to the village until they arrived at an open 

 space where a mat was spread on the ground before a semicircle of 

 friends and relatives. When the approaching party reached this mat 

 the lads seated themselves upon it, and then the screening mat was 

 lowered. Suddenly, for the first time for a month, the fathers and 

 female relatives saw the boys, and great were the crying and shouting 

 and exclamations of delight at the brave show. With tears the 

 mothers cried out, " My boy ! my boy ! " and they and other elderly 

 female relatives rushed up to them and fondled and caressed them, 

 and the mothers surreptitiously put dainty morsels by their 

 boys. 



Sitting with legs crossed under them and down-turned faces, the 

 boys neither moved nor exhibited the least emotion, for now they 

 were men. 



Less precise is my information respecting the corresponding rites 

 of the Eastern Tribe. So far as I could gather, there were in Mer, 

 the largest of the Murray Islands, two important ceremonies, which 

 we may term the initiation and the recognition ceremonies. For the 

 first the lads were assembled near a sacred round house, or pelah, in 

 which the awe-inspiring masks were kept. The ceremony was con- 

 ducted by three zogole, or sacred men, and their tamileh, or attendants. 

 The latter arranged themselves in a double row, from the peJah to the 



