THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA. 15 



and beneficent sun, was an emblem of all that was good. In 

 the Levitical economy, the red heifer was a sin-offering for 

 the Israelites, probably with some reference to the Egyptian 

 ideas about this colour. In India, Ganesa, the lord of all 

 mischievous and malignant spirits, is symbolised by red stones, 

 and the Cingalese, when they are sick, offer a red cock to the 

 evil spirit that has caused the sickness. The blacks of Congo 

 wash and anoint a corpse and then paint it red, and their 

 black brethren of Madagascar, when they are celebrating the 

 rite of circumcision, never wear anything red about them lest 

 the child should bleed to death. The negroes of Upper 

 Guinea, far enough removed from Australian Boras to prevent 

 even a suspicion of borrowing, make a similar use of the colours 

 red and white ; for in Benin, when a woman is first initiated 

 into the rites which the Babylonians sanctioned in honour of 

 their goddess Mulitta, she seats herself on a mat in a public 

 place, and covers her head, shoulders, and arms with the blood 

 of a fowl ; she then retires for her devotions, and, these 

 being finished, she washes herself, returns, and is rubbed 

 all over with white chalk where the blood had been. The 

 young ladies of Congo, also a black country, have a similar 

 custom, but they besmear their faces and necks with red 

 paint. 



In Australia, those who pass through the Bora paint them- 

 selves white at its close. Everywhere in Australia there is 

 the belief that the black man when he is dead and buried 

 still lives, but he is then white ; the aborigines say " black 

 fellow jumps up a white fellow ; " hence their name for white 

 man is " wunda," a word which originally described only the 

 black man in his spirit state after death. The father of a 

 friend of mine was the first white man to enter, some fifty 

 years ago, the territory of a black tribe near to where I lived ; 

 it so happened that the tribe had just lost their chief by death, 

 and, as the white man whom they saw coming over the crest 

 of the hill towards their camp bore some physical resemblance 

 to the deceased, they soon got to hail him as their chief in the 

 " wunda " state, and to this hour they claim that white man's 

 son as one of themselves, a brother ! 



Now, in the ancient rituals, white was the colour sacred to 

 the sun, the benign god, before whom darkness flies away. 

 In India, white agates represent Siva, the eternal cause of 

 all blessings ; in Persia, white horses were sacred to the sun ; 

 in Celtic Britain, some of the Welsh people even now whiten 

 their houses to keep away devils; and so with many other 

 examples. 



In these senses the " boombat " enters the Bora with the 



