ABORIGINAL TRIBES OF NEW SOUTH WALES AND VICTORIA. 329 



shall commence. They also choose the boys who are to be 

 operated upon, but this information is not communicated 

 to the women. When the eventful morning arrives, all the 

 people get up at daybreak, and congregate in a central 

 portion of the camping ground. All the boys are mustered 

 out of the whole camp and are put sitting in a row on green 

 boughs or pieces of bark spread on the ground for the pur- 

 pose. Several men who have been selected to take charge 

 of the boys are standing opposite, and have been carefully 

 instructed by the chiefs what boys are to be picked out 

 from among the large number who are sitting in the row 

 in front of them. The time of life at which a youth is con- 

 sidered ready for the ordeal is determined by the first 

 appearance of hair on the pubes and chin. 



Each man has a small quantity of pipe-clay, in a liquid 

 state, concealed in his mouth. One of these men, pretend- 

 ing to discern a stranger in the distance, says to his 

 comrades "Who is that coming yonder? " Another man 

 answers, " Probably some one to see the boys." This 

 causes the youths to turn their heads rearward to look at 

 the supposed new comer. As soon as they do so, each man 

 puts his forefinger into his mouth and pulls it out covered 

 with pipe-clay ; and on the boys again facing round to the 

 front, the men step up to them, and with their fingers draw 

 a white line down the faces of those who have been chosen, 

 from the forehead to the chin. This is a signal to the 

 women, as well as to all the other people in the camp, that 

 the youths thus marked have been taken possession of by 

 the elders, and the remainder of the boys in the row are 

 then dismissed. 



The men who have been deputed to act as guardians to 

 the novices now take charge of them and paint their bodies 

 with red ochre and grease — the- hair of their heads being 

 combed with pointed sticks and decorated with white 



