10 JOHN FRA8ER, B.A., LL.D. 



carvings sufficiently, the men give him a new name, which 

 must not be revealed to the uninitiated, and they hand to him 

 a little bag containing one or more small stones of crystal 

 quartz ; this bag he will always carry about his person, and 

 the stones must not be shown to the uninitiated on pain of 

 death. This concludes the first part of the performance. 



The " boombat " is next conveyed, blindfolded, to a large 

 camp at a distance of several miles, no woman being near, and 

 food is given to him, which he eats still with his eyes cast 

 down ; here they keep him for eight or ten days, and teach 

 him their tribal lore by showing him their dances and their 

 songs ; these he learns, especially one song of which I can 

 tell nothing further than that it is important for the boy to 

 know it. These songs, they say, were given them by Baiamai, 

 the great Creator. At night, during this period, the " boom- 

 bat " is set by himself in secluded and darksome places, and 

 all around the men make hideous noises, at which he musfc 

 not betray the least sign of fear. At some part of the cere- 

 mony a sacred wand is shown him ; of this Ridley says : 

 " This old man, Billy, told me, as a great favour, what other 

 blacks had withheld as ;i. mystery too sacred to be disclosed to 

 a white man, that " dhurumbuluin/' a stick or wand, is exhi- 

 bited at the Bora, and that the sight of it inspires the initiated 

 with manhood. This sacred wand was the gift of Baiamai. 

 The ground on which the Bora is celebrated is Baiamai's 

 ground. Billy believes the Bora will be kept up always all 

 over the country ; such was the command of Baiamai/' 



Another conspicuous part of the inner Bora customs is the 

 knocking out of one of the upper front teeth of the " boom- 

 bat." The tooth is then conveyed from one sub-tribe to 

 another until it has made the circuit of the whole tribe ; on its 

 return it is given to the owner or kept by the head man. It 

 is said that an ancient shield (cf. the sacred Ancilia of Rome,) 

 handed down from past ages,, and regarded as almost equal 

 to Daramulum himself, accompanied the tooth. This tooth- 

 breaking, however, is not practised by some of the larger 

 tribes ; but instead of it there is circumcision, cutting of the 

 hair, &c. 



on the ground for weeks, it may be, getting only a very little food and water 

 now and then. When he wishes to go outside, the old men carry him over 

 the circle-mound. With this compare the sacredness of the pomcerium cir- 

 cuit of ancient Rome. One black boy told me that when he was initiated, 

 he joined the Bora in the month of August, and did not get away till about 

 Christmas. When the blacks in charge of the sacred circle at last bade 

 him rise from his recumbent position, he said he was so weak that he 

 staggered and fell. 



