22 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



In speaking of one another also, men of the two moieties use 

 different words to describe their own and the other moiety. For 

 example, if you are speaking to a Panunga man he will refer to 

 the Kumarra and Purula as being MniyanFika, and to the 

 Panunga and Bultharra as Nakrakia. In just the same way a 

 Kumarra man will call his own moiety Nakrakia and the other 

 Mfilyam'ika. 



The evenings of the first three weeks were occupied by the 

 performance of two ordinary corrobborees at which all members 

 of the camp, women and children included, were allowed to be 

 present. Befoi-e these were concluded the leader of the 

 Engwurra went down to the ground where the ceremonies were 

 to be performed (the ordinary corrobboree ground being some 

 distance away) and here he made a long low mound of eai'th 

 about forty feet in length, two in width, and one in height, and 

 ornamented the top with small boughs of Eucalyptus. This was 

 called the Parra and apparently is meant to represent a tract of 

 country. By its side the great majority of the ceremonies were 

 enacted. At the end of the three weeks the men who were to be 

 finally initiated, together with the older men, separated themselves 

 from the women who remained in the main camp, and lived on 

 or close by the Engwurra ground for nearly three months. 

 During this period there was a constant succession of sacred 

 ceremonies, all of which were concerned with the totems. 



The idea of the whole ceremony was evidently first to test the 

 powers of endurance of the younger men who had implicitly to 

 obey the directions of the older men and secondly to impart to 

 them the sacred secrets of the tribe concerned with the totems 

 and the churinga. 



Without going into details it may be said that each of 

 the very numerous separate ceremonies was concerned with a 

 particular totem and further with a totem associated with a 

 particular spot. The native name for these sacred ceremonies is 

 Quabarra^ and the names of a few will serve as illustrations of 

 the long series. There was for example the Quabarra Unjeamba 

 of Ooroominna which means a ceremony of the Unjeamba or 

 Hakea flower totem of a place called Ooroominna ; the Quabarra 



1 The ordinary corrobboree is called " Altherta " by the Arunta people. 



