146 R. H, MATHEWS. 
The kooringal engage in hunting as they journey along in order 
to provide something for dinner. The boys walk with their 
guardians, having, as before stated, been released from wearing 
the rugs over their heads, but are forbidden to look in any direc- 
tion except straight ahead. About midway a waterhole is reached, 
where a halt is made, and the game caught by the way is cooked 
on fires lighted for the purpose. This camp is called Bidjerigang. 
At this halting place, the men and boys have all the hair singed 
off their bodies, and the hair of their heads is also singed to make 
it shorter, after which the men go into the waterhole and wash 
off the black paint.’ The guardians sit with the novices on the 
bank, and when the kooringal come out they mind the boys while 
the guardians perform their ablutions. None of the novices go 
into the waterhole. After this, the boys are painted with white 
spots on their faces, arms and chests. The guardian chews the 
end of a piece of tough green stick till it frays out like a kind of 
brush, which he dips in wet pipe clay and applies to the skin of 
the novice. These white spots are put on top of the red ochre 
with which the bodies of the novices have been kept painted dur- 
ing their sojourn in the ngoorang. All the men are painted in 
the way customary in their tribe, and boys and men wear their 
full dress. 
The journey forward is then resumed, and on going some 
distance farther on a halt is made for the purpose of giving the 
boys a new name.? The guardians and novices stand in a row, 
each of the latter having a small bush in his hand. The kooringal 
form into a semicircle several paces in front of the row of novices, 
and some of the old men, who are relatives of the boys, are deputed 
to name them. These old men stand out by themselves in front 
of the kooringal, and call up a certain guardian, who steps for- 
ward, bringing his novice with him, and both of them stand in 
1«The Burbung of the New England Tribes.”—Proc. Roy. Soc. Vic- 
toria, 1x., N.S., 131. ‘The Bora or Initiation Ceremonies of the Kamil- 
aroi Tribe.”—Journ. Anthrop. Inst., xxv., 336. 
2 Journ. Anthrop. Inst., xxv., 310; Ibid., xxv1., 281. 
