MURRUMBIDGEE, LOWER LACHLAN, AND LOWER DARLING. 27 
firmly fixed in that position the Baangal advances with a wooden 
punch made hard by fire ; this rude implement is placed against 
the teeth to be extracted, and then, with one smart blow on the 
unch with a tomahawk the operation is completed, and the 
hitherto boy has become a man. For three months after this 
cruel ordeal the young men are not allowed to look at a woman, 
young or old, as the sight of one during this probation would 
be the means of entailing numberless misfortunes, such as wi 
ing up of limbs, loss of eyesight, and, in fact, general decrepitude. 
Prior to the period when the youths are made young men ol, 
they dare not eat of emu flesh, wild turkey, swans, geese, or black 
duck, or of the eggs of any of these birds. Did they infringe this 
w in the very remotest degree their hair would become pre- 
maturely grey, and the muscles of their limbs would waste away 
and shrink u 
Any members of the tribe having malformations of the limbs 
or other parts of the body are pointed out as living examples of 
the dire fate of those who knowingly commit a breach of this 
aboriginal law. These poor cripples who are thus pointed at by 
na 
continually placed before them, the various kind of taboo 
are carefully avoided by the youths of the tribe ; thus the full 
wn men and women come in for many of the good things of 
aboriginal life which they most certainly would not but for this 
la . Nathless the framers of this wise (?) decree were sensible 
in their generation, and their descendants to this day reap the 
benefit of their remarkable wisdom. ‘ 
As a rule the aborigines have not any great capacity for physical 
i ge white men. 
y attributing their apparent want of stamina to 
of their having a “¢ rP ial 
can bear th e 
extent ; a 
_ Uncommon occurrence with them, more especially during stormy 
ee weather. During those inhospitable times though, nothing 
induce them to stir out of their camps; indeed, they will 
