GROUP DIVISIONS AND INITIATION CEREMONIES. 247 



As soon as the wounds caused by the circumcision are healed, 

 the novices are conducted to the vicinity of the women's camp, 

 and are exhibited to their female relatives with certain formalities 

 which I need not now occupy the space to detail. 



Mr. G. F. Angas, after referring to the blacks at Moorundie 

 and Overland Corner, states that in the Wirramaya tribe, occu- 

 pying the scrub country to the north-west of that part of the 

 Murray River, the rite of circumcision was in force. He says a 

 bullroarer was sounded, and no women were allowed to be present. 

 The novice was laid on his back, and then, with a sharp flint an 

 old man cut off the foreskin, and placed it on the third finger of 

 the boy's left hand. He was then allowed to get up, and, in 

 company with a man selected for the purpose, went away to the 

 hills for a time. 1 Mr. E. M. Ourr says that in Yorke's Peninsula, 

 South Australia, the boys were circumcised, and the foreskin was 

 swallowed by the youth's father. 2 



The Tumba. — In that portion of the Barkunjee nation situated 

 north of the tribes adopting the Kuranda ceremony, and east of 

 those amongst whom circumcision is in force, the inaugural rite 

 is called Tumba, which in its main features resembles the Bora 

 of the Kamilaroi tribes. Messengers are sent out, and the muster- 

 ing of the neighbouring tribes is conducted in the usual manner ; 

 and during this time the people in whose country the assemblage 

 takes place are occupied in the preparation of the meeting place. 

 Early in the morning which has been settled upon for taking 

 charge of the novices, they are painted by the men from distant 

 tribes, after which their mothers and the remainder of the women 

 are covered over with green bushes, grass and rugs. The procedure 

 in taking away the novices is substantially the same as that 

 adopted on similar occasions by the Kamilaroi and Wiradjuri 

 communities, which I have elsewhere described. 3 



1 Savage Life in Australia and New Zealand, i , 99. 



2 Australian Race, II., 144. 



3 Journ. Anthrop. lust., xxv., 295-339. 



