ABORIGINAL BORA. 



121 



tails* — these they stuck in their girdles and danced a corroboree, 

 imitating kangaroos, f 



At night the courage of the novices was tested by making them 

 lie on the ground in the yard in charge of some of the men, who 

 were instructed to observe them, while the old men would each 

 take a youth who had been to at least one Bora before, and would 

 thus go in pairs in different directions some distance into the 

 adjacent scrub, where they would make hideous noises, and raise 

 a terrific din, sounding the wooden instrument called murrawan, 

 previously referred to, and during this time the youths were not 

 allowed to exhibit any alarm. During the daytime these instru- 

 ments were hidden away in great secrecy by the old men. This 

 was carried on every night for about a week, at the end of which 

 the secret wooden instruments were shown to the novices, and 

 their mysterious significance was fully explained, after which they 

 were placed on the camp fire and burnt. J 



On some days the novitiates would be ranged in a line in the 

 bough yard before described in front of the old men, and those 

 who had lately been admitted as men of the tribe, all of whom 

 would go through many obscene gestures for the purpose of shock- 

 ing the young fellows ; and if the latter had shown the least sign 

 of mirth or frivolity, they would have been hit over the head with 

 a nullah nullah by an old man appointed to watch them. This 

 pantomimic representation was enacted for the purpose of teaching 

 them to abstain from masturbation, and from those offences which 



* The blacks told my informant the following legend about Baiamai 

 and his two sons in regard to these tails . — They were out huuting one 

 day and caught two kangaroos, and cut their tails off. The next Bora 

 they went to Baiamai's sons danced with these tails tied behind them like 

 kangaroos, and this custom has been followed by the tribes at all Boras 

 ever since. 



f At the Bora described by Collins, referred to at p. 100 of this paper, 

 he mentions a similar dance. 



X E. Palmer says, that "in the Bellinger Eiver tribe, the humming 

 instrument (bull-roarer) is called yeemboomul, and when the ceremony of 

 the Bora is over, they burn it/' — Anthr. Joum., xiii., p. 296. 



