104 R. H. MATHEWS. 



Mr. George Gibson, owner of the Wullamgambone run, on the 

 Mole, informs me that he has resided in that part of the country 

 for more than forty- five years, and is well acquainted with the 

 blacks and their customs, and can speak their language fluently. 

 He states that the natives of the Bogan and Macquarie Rivers 

 have admitted to him, in answer to his enquiries, that the custom 

 of eating human ordure at the ceremony of the Bora was practised 

 among them, and that their mode of eating it was to mix it with 

 wild honey. He says he got this information from about half a 

 dozen different blackfellows, at various times, and is quite satisfied 

 of the truth of it. The Bora was called burbung by these blacks. 



Mr. A. Brown, the owner of a station on the Castlereagh 

 River, informed me that the blacks had told him that the reason 

 for eating human ordure at the Bora ceremonies was to impress 

 upon the novices that if they did not strictly carry out the rites 

 and ceremonies which they were commanded by Baiamai to per- 

 form, they would have to eat excrement " in the land of the 

 hereafter." 



From the enquiries I have made I am forced to the same con- 

 clusion as that arrived at by Mr. Ridley, that there can be no 

 doubt the practice referred to was observed by some tribes, but 

 was not general. 



Mr. Ridley describes another Bora-ground near the junction of 

 the Page and Isis Rivers. It was circular in form, about a 

 hundred and fifty yards in circumference, and was bounded by a 

 raised earthen path. In the centre of this circle was a large fire. 

 There was the horizontal figure of a man, roughly modelled by 

 laying down sticks and covering them with earth, so as to raise 

 it from four to seven inches above the ground. This figure was 

 twenty-two feet long, twelve feet wide from hand to hand, the 

 width of the body being four feet. Around this spot were one 

 hundred or one hundred and twenty trees marked with a toma- 

 hawk in various patterns. While the young men were awaiting 

 the ceremony of initiation they were made to lie flat on the ground, 

 just in the posture of the figure above described. The candidates 



