634 MATHEWS—SOUTH AUSYRALIAN ABORIGINES. [Oct. 5, 
allotted as husbands and wives respectively to the sons and daugh- 
ters of certain other women, these matters being arranged during 
the infancy of the parties to the marriage, and in some cases before 
they are born. In order that every man and woman may be sure 
of obtaining a conjugal mate, several persons are appointed to each 
individual of either sex, the same persons being often eligible to 
several different people. When they all grow up to manhood and 
womanhood each man claims the woman who has been assigned to 
him, or, if she has died, he takes one of the other women who 
were appointed to meet such a contingency. In like manner, if 
the allotted husband of a young woman loses his life, she is taken 
by one of the other men provided for the purpose. 
MISCELLANEOUS PHALLIC RITES. 
Besides the inaugural rites herein described, I am acquainted with 
other forms of initiation ceremonies in different parts of Australia, 
in all of which great prominence is given to the sexual organs, In 
aboriginal carvings of human beings on rocks and on trees, in 
raised or carved figures on the ground, and in paintings on the 
walls of caves, the sexual organs are conspicuously displayed. 
There is much in these rites and customs suggestive of the exist- 
ence of some form of phallic worship at an earlier period, if not 
still actually observed, among the Australian aborigines. 
In the great gatherings for the Bora ceremonies of the Kamilaroi 
community a gigantic horizontal image of Byama, a mythologic 
ancestor, is formed by heaping up loose earth upon the surface of 
the ground.' He is represented lying on his back, with a piece of 
wood cut into a representation of the human penis projecting from 
his abdomen. This organ is disproportionately large compared 
with the dimensions of the body. The initiated men assemble 
daily on the Bora ground and dance round this image, uttering 
guttural incantations and making remarks referring to the great size 
of the penis, and while so engaged they catch hold of their own 
genital organs in both hands. Similar representations have been 
observed by me among the Wiradjuri, Koombanggary and several 
other tribes. 
Not far from the image of Byama is the earthen representation 
of his wife, also of colossal proportions and lying on her back, 
1 Proc, Roy. Soc. Victoria, Vol. ix, N.S., p. 144. 
