PBBSIDENTIAL ADDRESS — SECTION G. 345 



represented one of the two principal classes. This totem 

 made the other totem aware of the order given, and it and its 

 sister totems were aided in carrying out the ceremonies by the 

 aggregate totems of the other moiety. 



One primary class thus initiated the youths of the other 

 class, and this is easily understood when it is remembered that 

 it would afterwards give its daughters or sisters to these men 

 as wives. In the Kumai Tribe the message originated with the 

 head-man of one of the moieties of the tribe, which in this case 

 were entirely local. The messenger was most commonly a re- 

 lative of the head-man, and probably of the same local clan. 

 The message was conveyed to the head-man of the other 

 moiety, and, as in this instance there w^ere no totems, it has 

 one moiety of the tribe composed of local classes, which aided 

 the other moiety to initiate the youths of the tribe. The 

 Kumai had no connubium with surrounding tribes, and there- 

 fore the " community " was confined to themselves alone.''' 



The principles on which the bora ceremonies are formed 

 may be stated as follows — for all tribes, so far as my knowledge 

 extends, whatever variation there may be in practice. The 

 youth in initiation passes from boyhood to manhood, and 

 .assumes or is invested thereby with the privileges of the latter, 

 but with its responsibilities as a member of the tribe. 



With the Wirajuri the novice is taken from the assembled 

 women — i.e., out of the maternal control — by the initiated men 

 of that moiety of the tribe to which belongs his future wife, or, 

 to state the case with more precision, to which belong the 

 women as regards whom he has inherited potential marital 

 rights. The men who especially instruct him and watch over 

 him during the ceremonies are the brothers — own or tribal 

 — of those women. 



It is, nmtatis mutandis, the same with the Kumai. With 

 them the men who stand in the fraternal relation to the 

 women from among whom the novice might in the future 

 legally obtain a wife are the sponsors of the novice. It is, 

 therefore, in all cases the one moiety of the tribe which initiate 

 the youths being the sons of the other moiety, and the 

 initiated youths take each other's sisters — own or tribal — to 

 wife. 



The ceremonies themselves impress upon the novice the 

 necessity of abandoning for ever childish habits, and of be- 

 having themselves with the gravity and decorum due to man- 

 hood. This is impressed upon them by the instructions of 



* There may possibly have been an exception as regards the south- 

 western clan — the Bratana— to whose ceremonies some of tlie western 

 Kulin came ; but, as these ceremonies were held after the settlement of 

 the country by the whites, I think it open to question whether this was 

 originally the practice. 



