Art. X. — The Burbung of the New England Tribes, 

 New So a tli Wales. 



By R. H. Mathews, 



Licensed Surveyor. 



(Communicated by Professor Baldwin Spencer). 



[Read 9th July, 1896.] 



In pursuing my professional duties as a surveyor in various 

 parts of the New England district of New South Wales during a 

 number of years past, I frequently met and was intimately 

 acquainted with many of the head men of the native tribes 

 scattered over that portion of the country, and took advantage of 

 these opportunities to collect all the available details respecting 

 their initiation ceremonies. As the result of my own observa- 

 tions, and from information obtained from the natives, I have 

 prepared what it is hoped will be found a correct and tolerably 

 full account of the ceremonies carried out amongst the tribes who 

 occupied a strip of elevated country along the main dividing 

 range, from about Moonbi to Ben Lomond, comprising what 

 is called the " Table Land " of New England. The territory of 

 these tribes extended down the eastern side of this range perhaps 

 as far as Walcha, Hillgrove and Oban. On the west of the 

 main range they included Bendemeer, and reached almost to 

 Bundarra and Inverell, adjoining the Kamilaroi tribes all the 

 way. The principal dialects spoken by them are the Noivan and 

 Yunggai. They have the Kamilaroi organisation, being divided 

 into four classes, with uterine descent, but the class names are 

 different from those of the Kamilaroi tribes.* This part of the 

 subject will be dealt with by me in another paper. 



Generally speaking, the reader is invited to remember that, 

 although the main features of the initiation ceremonies obtaining 

 over a wide area may be essentially the same, there are several 

 local variations in some of the details in different parts of it. 



* See my paper on " The Kamilaroi Class System of the Australian Aborigines." Proc. 

 Roy. Geog. Soc. Aust. (Q.), x., 18-34, Plate I. 



