iF 
1900.] MATHEWS—SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES. 627 
but leaving the head of the penis and the meatus uninjured. In 
the latter case the length of the cleft is from one to two inches or 
more. 
The graduate is then released, and a piece of soft bark or a 
bundle of fur or down, greased with animal fat, is laid in the incis- 
ion to keep it open. Wet clay or ashes moistened with a man’s 
urine are also put in the wound to assist the healing. The organ is 
then bound round with string manufactured by the natives from the 
bark of a shrub or small tree bearing a yellow flower which grows 
in the sand hills. 
As each youth passes through the ordeal he is placed standing on 
one side of the cleared space, and when the ceremony is concluded 
they are all congratulated by the men present, and the caution in 
regard to keeping the secret is again repeated. The young men 
are then taken away by their guardians into the bush, and when 
their wounds are healed they are brought back to a prepared spot in 
the vicinity of the camp and presented to the people of their tribe. 
This is done with certain formalities which need not now be entered 
upon, after which they are invested with the belt, the kilt, and 
other articles comprising the simple dress of an Australian savage. 
During the ceremony of subincision—or at that of circumcision 
if the latter only is practiced—one or two men are killed and eaten 
by the visitors, who also drink the blood. The tribe in whose ter- 
ritory the circumcision or subincision has been carried out—these 
being the people who summoned their neighbors to attend the cere- 
monies—have to provide the person or persons thus sacrificed from , 
among themselves. I also have evidence of this cannibalistic rite 
among the tribes occupying the eastern portion of Australia, where 
the initiation ceremonies take a different form." 
The Rev. C. W. Schiirmann was the first author to accurately 
describe the mutilatien of the penis among Australian tribes.” In 
1846, when speaking of the Port Lincoln natives, South Australia, . 
he states: ‘‘It consists of a cut from the orifice of the penis along 
its lower side down to the scrotum, thus laying the passage open in 
its whole length.’’ In 1845, Mr. E. J. Eyre also reports having 
observed this peculiar custom in the same part of the country.* As 
1Proc, AMER. PHILOS. Soc., Vol. xxxvii, p. 66. 
Fourn, Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales, Vol, xxxii, p. 250. 
1 Aboriginal Tribes of Port Lincoln, South Australia (Adelaide, 1846) 
ely Lge 
8 Yourns. Expeds, Discov, Central Aus. (1845), Vol. ii, p. 332. 
