118 R. H. MATHEWS. 
Instead of preparing another Burbung ground like the one they 
had been obliged to abandon, they selected a clear space of well 
grassed land near the camp, and formed a ring about seventy feet 
in diameter by binding the tops of the grass together around its 
boundary, but the grass growing within the ring was not cleared 
away. On the following morning the people mustered around 
this grass ring (ngyendool), and the whole of the procedure in 
taking away the novices was the same as described farther on in 
this paper. 
Gathering the Tribes.—The headman of the tribe whose turn it 
is to muster the people for the Burbung, and who may be called 
the initiator, sends a messenger, accompanied perhaps by another 
man, to one of the neighbouring tribes in which he has some 
relatives or friends. A message stick, (dharral), on which some 
symbols were carved, would be handed to the messenger, and their 
meaning explained to him. This stick would have a long string, 
made of opossum fir, twisted around it. The purport of this 
message would be something to the effect that the sender knew 
of a place in his country, (ngoorumbang ), where there were plenty 
of kangaroos, birds, iguanas, and other game. The bearer of the 
message on arrival near the men’s camp in the tribe to which he 
was sent, would sit down, and some of them would gotohim. He 
would then be conducted to the ngooloobul, or private meeting 
place of the men, and introduced to the headmen of the tribe, to 
whom he would hand the message stick, and deliver the oral 
message which he had received with it. The headman would 
understand by his friend reporting that he knew of a place where 
there was plenty of game, that he was ready to gather the tribes 
into his hunting grounds, for the purpose of initiating their boys, 
if they were agreeable to his doing 80. 
A consultation is held among the men present as to the time 
that would be most convenient for them to accept the invitation. 
They then give the messenger several tails (bwrran ), some bunches 
of feathers, and a bunch of grass tied up, for distribution among 
the initiator and his friends. The messenger is then sent back to 
