: ae ie bas Pet 5 : he ah i yee: Bi eee, 
_ NOTES ON THE ABORIGINES OF NEW HOLLAND, 
BS ENR 
oe : _ homestead, and remarked to him, with an air of conciliation and. 
Adam and Eve. The account of Noah’s Ark was a very general 
cause of confusion. As a rule, the aborigines were totally incapable 
of remembering quantity, number, time, or space. A pleasant 
little ceremony was the admission of the youth of a tribe, on coming 
___ of age, into the participation of certain secrets and privileges, For 
Some time previous to the initiation, about six months, the boys 
_/ were starved down, and on the day appointed the tribe assembled 
and the chief elder of the number knocked out the front tooth of 
each with a stone hatchet. The secrets of the tribe were then tal 
__ them apart from the women, and they were compelled to sleep for 
the night on the graves of the departed patriarchs of their families, 
‘s they being thus supposed to absorb the virtues of the d 
_ One lad who related the story of his initiation stated to the narrator 
_ that he had trembled with fear and the perspiration had po 
_ from him whilst he was taking in the essence of his deceased great 
ae great-grandfather. The old gentleman had heen a celebrated fisher- 
which was sup) 
Pens sae ed of some supernatural power. A blackfellow, in whom 
é he had the greatest confidence, once took him aside in a 
s now in the grave in the stomach of its owner. These ‘a 
rarmMs Were supposed to render their owners invulnerable. ie 
Horigines possessed a very extensive knowledge of the Lae, 
s they told to white men as traditions of tie bes, 
truth they were but fictions founded on seraps of ™ 
had picked up from associating with the white 
2h 
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