THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA. 1 7 



wand that Kidley mentions is called dhurumlulum ; and the 

 great ancestral Bora ground of the Karailaroi tribe in New 

 South Wales is at Tirri-hai-hai. In Victoria this same 

 roaring instrument is called turndnn, which I think should 

 be written dhurrum-dun. All these names are identical, and 

 only modifications of dara-mulun; thus, with a slight alteration 

 of the spelling, we have turra-mu\-un <?itrra-m-dun, durru-ra.- 

 bulun, tirri-coty, fo'm'-hai-hai. The root of all these forms 

 I take to be dara, dar, Sanskrit dri, meaning to protect, a root 

 found in all the great branches of human speech, and furnish- 

 ing derivatives which mean " a prince," ' ( a governor/' 

 " a lord," " a supreme ruler." I therefore take Daramulun 

 to mean something like "Lord of the mysteries," for it is 

 evident that he presides at the Bora, and is the source of 

 the blessings therein communicated. The use of a fish- 

 shaped roarer to indicate his presence leads me to com- 

 pare him with the Chaldeean god, Hoa, Hea, half man, 

 half fish, who, in the Chaldaeo-Babylonian religion, was 

 reverenced as the revealer of all religious and social 

 knowledge. His abode was the sea, the Persian Gulf, where he 

 passed the night, but by day he remained among men to instruct 

 them; thus he became a legislator and protector. Hea, as a god, 

 "seesthat all is in order," and, being acquainted with all sciences, 

 he can baffle the powers of evil by his magic arts. With this 

 I compare the "magic" shown by the Koradjie in the Bora 

 in the presence of Daramulun's image. The Akkadians, and 

 from them the Babylonians, invoked the aid of Hea, when 

 spells and enchantments were found unavailing against the 

 power of demons. So in the Bora passage, when Daramulun 

 had been duly honoured and magic influence conjured up for 

 the driving away of all adverse spirits, the lad is taken into 

 the inner circle and sees the gods of his fathers, and learns to 

 know them and their attributes, just as in the greater Eleusini:>, 

 of Greece the duly qualified were, after a course of previous 

 preparation, led into the inner sanctuary in the darkness of 

 night, and there, by a dim light, allowed to see and know the 

 holy things. 



(E.) The next step in the process of initiation is interest- 

 ing: (1) a sacred wand is shown to the "boombat :" (2) he 

 gets a new name ; and (3) certain white stones are given to 

 him. 



(e.) (1) The wand. In this there is the notion of consecra- 

 tion and sacredness ; for, on the Egyptian monuments, the 

 deities are constantly represented as holding in one hand a 

 long rod or wand, with a crook on the upper end of ifc. The 

 king also, and some of the higher officers of state, carry this 



