158 R. H. MATHEWS. 



natives should rehearse all their old ceremonies of every 

 kind, and explain their marriage, burial and other customs, 

 as well as describe all matters upon which information 

 was sought. 



Such an extensive programme necessarily occupied a 

 considerable time — apparently more than four consecutive 

 months. It is unnecessary to repeat the well known fact 

 that the habitat of the Arunta tribe is a dry and arid 

 country, in which animal and plant life is of the most 

 scanty and precarious description. It is probable that all 

 the people assembled would nave died of starvation in less 

 than a fortnight if they had been depending upon the 

 natural food products of the forests and plains of that 

 locality. Moreover, it is not unlikely that the wise men of 

 the Arunta prolonged all the details of the meeting to their 

 utmost limit, in order to extend their sojourn in such a 

 veritable "Tom Tiddler's Ground." 



Boy Companions for Men. 

 Several of my most trustworthy correspondents, who 

 have resided many years in different places in the Northern 

 Territory and in the northern and central portions of 

 Western Australia, inform me that unmarried men are 

 generally accompanied by young boys, who are allotted to 

 them by the old men. No man has the privilege of obtain- 

 ing a boy until he has himself passed through the ceremonies 

 of circumcision and subincision. The boy is a brother, 

 actually or collaterally, of one of the woman whom the 

 man will be permitted to marry by and by. Such a boy's 

 mother, therefore, is the potential mother-in-law of the 

 man, and consequently he must neither speak to nor look 

 at her. 



This custom has given rise to a widespread belief among 

 the white population that paederasty is practiced ; but from 

 very careful inquiries made by friends at my request, I am 



