NORTH QUEENSLAND ETHNOGRAPHY — ROTH. 177 



the snake dance is performed in this smaller cleared space, this 

 being followed by the wrestling matches. At last they all return 

 to the original encampment, where the novices now occupy the 

 bachelors' quarters. .Some time subsequently, depending upon 

 the season, etc., the young fellow commences to eat certain of the 

 foods that have previously been forbidden him, the first that he 

 is allowed to partake of being the wo-kai yam (Dioscorea, sp.), 

 the last, many months later, being the scrub-hen's eggs. None 

 of these food-stuffs, however, is he allowed to speak of by their 

 right name ; to specialise — lie must generalise them all as bandil- 

 maja. Furthermore, during all this period that he is being 

 allowed to gradually partake of more and more of the various 

 foods which had hitherto been forbidden him, all women and 

 any uninitiated males are strictly to avoid, touch, etc., anything 

 that he has eaten from or drunk of. At length he gets his nose 

 pierced by an individual known as the pi-wal (who is sometimes 

 a woman), one being appointed to each novice, whose duty it is 

 to acquaint him with the relationship, etc., that he now bears to 

 other members of the tribe ; from this time onwards tin- young 

 man never speaks by name either to or of his pi-wal unless by 

 chance there happens to be some blood-fend springing up between 

 them. It is only subsequently to the initiation that the young 

 men are taught the use of the bull-roarers. Females go through 

 none of these initiation rites ; men need not necessarily have 

 gone through it, even before marriage or even before children 

 have been born to them. 



5. On the Lower Tully River their is no name attached to the 

 ceremony which is carried nut for boys alone, and apparently 

 with one particular object only — the infliction of the belly— ears. 

 No women, and no young boys who have not already been 

 initiated, are allowed to be pr< sent. Several youths may be 

 initiated at the same time, from one up to five or six. They are 

 informed of it a week or so beforehand, as also are a few of the 

 gins who are told-off to prepare large quantities of a particular 

 food-stuff, the " bara " nut. The boys are about seventeen or 

 eighteen years of age, when the moustache is developed, when 

 they are considered read} 7 for the rite. The ceremony lasts from 

 four to five days, but does not take place at any particular time 

 of the year; it is usually gone through in the neighbourhood of 

 a river-bank, but not necessarily always in the same spot. No 

 special dresses, ornaments, etc., for either the men or the young 

 boys, and no special implement beyond flint-flake, are brought 

 into requisition ; the novice's name is not changed, nor is any- 

 thing special taught him All who have undergone the ceremony 



