ABORIGINAL TRIBES OP NEW SOUTH WALES AND VICTORIA. 263 



logical Institute of Great Britain. 1 Their ceremonies of 

 initiation were described by me in a communication to the 

 Royal Geographical Society at Brisbane in 1896. 2 I also 

 dealt with a portion of their social organisation in two 

 articles to the Anthropological Society at Washington in 

 1897. 3 



As no account of the import of scarring the body and the 

 ceremonial connected with it has ever been published, I 

 shall give a brief description of some of its main features. 

 At the Burbling, or ceremonies of initiation already referred 

 to, certain restrictions regarding the eating of animals and 

 other articles of diet are imposed upon the novice, such 

 prohibited food being called wanal. As the youth grows 

 older, he is liberated from these taboos one by one, his 

 release from each object following a prescribed routine, 

 and being accompanied by a ceremony. It is unnecessary 

 to add that no man can be scarred who has not passed 

 through the Biirbung ceremonies. 



In the tribe with which I am dealing, the first wanal 

 from which a youth is liberated is the fat male opossum. 

 Hitherto he has only been allowed to eat lean and tough 

 animals of that species. He is taken into the bush by his 

 mother's brothers, the brothers of his potential wives, and 

 his father's people, and a number of leading tribesmen are 

 also present. A fire is kindled and the subject is carefully 

 painted and rubbed over with opossum fat. The animal 

 itself is cooked and some of the flesh is given to the youth 

 by his uncle, which he eats while the old chiefs sing the 

 song prescribed for the fat opossum ; and the other men 



1 Journ. Anthrop. Inst., July - December, 1904. 



8 " The Initiation Ceremonies of the Aborigines of the Upper Lachlan," 

 Queensland Geographical Journal, Vol. xi., pp, 167 - 169. 



3 American Anthropologist, Vol. ix., pp. 411 - 416, and Vol. x., pp. 

 345 - 347. See also my " Totemic Divisions of Australian Tribes," Journ. 

 Eoy. Soc. N. S. Wales, Vol. xxxi., pp. 154- 176. 



