150 Proeeedi lUjs of fh<' Boijal Socid;/ of Victoria. 



the boy to always liold fast to his own tire — in other words not 

 to interfere with the women who have been allotted to other 

 men. After this, and at a signal from an old Okilia, the Wurtja 

 gets lip and I'uns away followed by a number of shouting boys 

 who after a short time return and, along with the women, leave 

 the Apulia ground and run back to the main camp. 



The Wurtja is accompanied by some Okilia and Unkulla men 

 who remjiiu out with him in the bush for usually three days. 

 During tiiis time nothing of any special nature happens to him 

 beyond the fact that he may not speak unless spoken to, and that 

 he is not Jiliowed to eat freely, tliough he is not as yet bound by 

 the food restrictions which he will very shoitly have to obey. 

 The main object of this partial seclusion is to impress him with 

 the fact that he is about to enter into the ranks of the men, and 

 to raai'k the break between his old life and the new one ; he has 

 no precise knowledge of what is in store for him and the sense 

 of something out of the ordinary being about to happen to him — - 

 something moreover which is of a more or less mysterious nature 

 — helps to impress him strongly with a feeling of the deep 

 importance of strict compliance with the tribal rules and further 

 still with a strong sense of the superiority of the f)lder men who 

 know and are familiar with all the mysterious rites, some of 

 which he is al'out to learn the meaning of for the first time. 



When brought back to the Apullii, the Wurtja is placed first 

 of all behind the binke at the west end of the ground from where 

 he may not move without the pei'mi-ssion of his Okilia. The 

 Apulia ground is in chai'ge of a man who is an Oknia of the boy. 

 On this, the fourth night, tlie men spend the time, hour after 

 hour, singing of the marching of the Ullakupei'a men in the 

 Alcliei'inga, and of their operations with their celebrated Ijalira 

 or stone knives. J'^very now and then they bienk out into the 

 UUakupcra Lartna song : 



" Irriyulta yulta rai 

 Ul katchera ulkatcherrai." 



Which is always sung in tieice, loud tones. Altout midnight 

 two Okilia go to the Wurtja and having blindfolded him bring 

 him to the group of men where he is made to lie, face down- 

 wards on the ground, until two men who are to about to perform 



