116 ANTHROPOLOGICAL NOTE<=! OF 50 YEARS AGO 



carried weight according to his earnestness on the question 

 and his force of character. These outings sometimes lasted 

 for months, each tribe inviting the other to its " towrie '* 

 or hunting ground. Idolatry was unknown either at boras 

 or at any other time. Effigies were used, but not wor- 

 shipped. The " mysterious observances " talked about 

 have no foundation in fact. They have no theories as to a 

 future life. The " die blackfellow, jump up white-fellow " 

 is a white man's importation. They believe in the presence- 

 of departed spirits and do not like to name a deceased person^ 

 Their grief at a death is very demonstrative and noisy, 

 and is accompanied by their cutting themselves with mussel 

 shells and sharp flints. They have no idea of God. All 

 their " theology " is associated with evil spirits supposed 

 to inhabit the heavenly bodies, thunder, lightning, meteors,. 

 shooting stars, etc. 



Their ideas and ceremonies vary somewhat in different 

 tribes, just as do our own religious sects. In the North the 

 bora ring is an area like a rabbit-warren ; the large and small 

 circles of one tribe and the two equal circles of another 

 being merely differences in matters of form. The root prin- 

 ciples are the same. 



The extraordinary lengths to which these bora practices 

 sometimes run have a parallel in the religious frenzies seen 

 among our own race at times. 



The " Yo-Yo " bora ceremonies of the Barwon River 

 are almost identical with the " Wom-nay-narah-narah " 

 of Cooper's Creek. 



The cutting off the top joint of the little finger and the 

 piercing the septum of the nose are of social and not of 

 religious significance. Pipe-clay marks on a gin had a 

 medico-sexual import, not a religious one. The corrob- 

 boree serves as a history or record of political and domestic 

 events, and is an easy way of spreading local gossip to the 

 other tribes. To send unwelcome rain away, all the men 

 gathered kneeling in a ring round a " charm " — a water- 

 worn stone — and for half- an- hour repeated " Wee yan^ 

 Burran " (Go away, rain). If the rain went, faith in the 

 " stone " increased ; if not, some other tribe was praying 

 for the rain to continue. With the advent of the whites, 

 and the dying out of the blacks, boras and corrobborees are 

 neglected and forgotten. The marriage and other laws- 



