ABORIGINAL BORA. 107 



until their respective destinations were reached. The initiated 

 messengers, as before stated, went from .camp to camp without 

 any convoy. 



The messengers went away separately, each having his own 

 route, and before being despatched they were each provided with 

 a piece of wallaby skin,* as an emblem of their mission, which they 

 had to keep hung in front of them by means of a string tied round 

 the waist ; and they were instructed to wear this badge all the 

 time they were engaged in this duty. On the first evening of the 

 arrival of one of these messengers at a camp, he would strip quite 

 naked, paint himself with raddle, and appear with the piece of 

 wallaby skin hanging in front as a covering. He then went 

 through a ceremonial dance before the tribe, after which he 

 delivered his message to the head-men. The same procedure was 

 gone through at every camp visited by him until he reached his final 

 destination. It may be mentioned that the messengers sent out 

 to muster the tribes were considered persons of some importance 

 by the blacks whom they visited. When a messenger at length 

 arrived at the last of the camps he had been directed to summon, 

 he remained with the blacks there until they were ready to 

 accompany him, when the return journey to the Bora-ground was 

 commenced, the assemblage being increased by a fresh contingent 

 of natives at each of the places visited by the messenger on his 

 way out. During the journey to the Bora ground, when the con- 

 tingents camped at night, they sometimes had dances and songs 

 at the camp fire. "When this concourse neared the Bora camp, one 

 of the chief-men went a-head and informed those already assembled, 

 of the near approach of the visitors. All the men in that camp were 

 then mustered with their weapons of war in their hands, and on 

 the new comers approaching they were welcomed with volleys of 

 joyous shouting, which they returned. Then the messenger who 

 had escorted them thither, having now finished the task assigned 



* Bidley says, " The herald who summons the tribes to the Bora bears 

 in his hand a boomerang, and a spear with a padamelon skin hanging 

 upon it." — Kamilaroi and Other Australian Languages, p. 153. 



