THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA. 11 



All these formalities being now completed, the boombat's 

 probation is at an end. They now proceed, all of them 

 together, to some large water-hole, and jumping in, men and 

 boys, they wash off the colouring matter from their bodies, 

 amid much glee, and noise, and merriment, and, when they 

 have come out of the water, they paint themselves 

 white. 



Meanwhile, the women, who have been called to resume their 

 attendance, have kindled a large fire not far off, and are lying 

 around it, with their faces covered as at thefirst; the twoold men, 

 who were the original initiators, bring the boy at a run towards 

 the fire, followed by all the others, with voices indeed silent, 

 but making a noise by beating their boomerangs together ; 

 the men join hands and form a ring round the fire, and one old 

 man runs round the inside of the ring beating a heelaman or 

 shield. A woman, usually the boy's own mother, then steps 

 within the ring, and, catching him under the arms, lifts him 

 from the ground once, sets him down, and then retires ; 

 everybody, the boy included, now jumps upon the decaying 

 red embers, until the fire is extinguished. 



Thus ends the Bora; the youth is now a man, for his initia- 

 tion and his instruction are over. But, although these are 

 formalities observed in admitting a youth into the tribe, yet 

 in the Bora, as in freemasonry, the novice does not become 

 a full member all at once, but must pass through several grades, 

 and these are obtained by attending a certain number of 

 Boras ; here also, as in Africa, restrictions as to food are 

 imposed, which are relaxed from time to time, until at last 

 the youth is permitted to eat anything he may find ; thus 

 the process of qualifying for full membership may extend 

 over two or three years. Then he becomes an acknowledged 

 member of the tribe, undertakes all the duties of membership, 

 and has a right to all its privileges. 



I have thus finished my description of the Bora ceremonies, 

 and, as a sort of introduction to that description, I gave at the 

 outset a condensed account of similar observances both in 

 Africa and in India. 



Now, when I cast my eye over the Bora and its regulated 

 forms, I feel myself constrained to ask, " What does all this 

 mean ? " I, for one, cannot believe that the Bora, with all its 

 solemnities (for the rites were sacred, and the initiated were 

 bound not to divulge what they had seen and done), is a 

 meaningless, self-developed thing ; still less that the same 

 thing can have developed spontaneously in Australia and 

 in farthest Africa ; I prefer to see in it a symbolism covering 1 

 ancestral beliefs a symbolism intelligible enough to the 



