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RECORDS OF TIIK AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



or any females whatever. In the following season when the next 

 bo ata ceremony takes place, the novice is allowed to enter the 

 cleared space with his decorations, and join in the dancing along 

 with the other performers. After he has thus twice, i.e., during 

 two seasons, taken an active part in the actual dance within the 

 precincts of the bo-ata ring he is led up before one of the very 

 old men who rubs his (the novice's) chest and stomach with each 

 of the different food-stuffs so long forbidden, which he successively 

 places in the } T ounger man's hand, as a sign of their being now 

 permitted him. Having completed this initiation, the novice is 

 a barnbata, can speak by name of all these food-stuffs to his 

 fellow-men, and is now allowed to many. 



The Koko-warra here have six initiation ceremonies through 

 which an individual, if he is anxious to reach the top rung of 

 the social ladder, has progressively to pass. Taking them in 

 their proper order, they are the bo-ata, urr-dii, gaun-darang, an- 

 den, alkir, and alkan-jinna. As an individual passes the first 

 three, he is known successively as a barnbata, karkanta, and 

 alpo-anna. The neighbouring Koko-rarmul Tribe have only four 

 rites, the barta, an tar a, an-pi, and an-piil, an individual passing 

 the first two being called first a barn-batang, and then an 



an tarn tang. 



I was witness to portion of the alkir or fifth Koko-warra initia- 

 tion ceremony, which I was informed was a replica of what had 

 been going on daily for some six or seven weeks previously. For 





Q 



a 





Fig. 11. 



this rite a special piece of ground known as the rau-rar (KWA.) 

 was laid off; this consists of a broad path separated from a 

 narrow one by a screen, an arrangement which in diagram would 

 appear something like Fig. 11. The broader pathway, cleared 

 of timber, leaves and rubbish, which thus constitute the slightly 



