INITIATION CEREMONIES OF THE ABORIGINES OF PORT STEPHENS. 115 



The INITIATION CEREMONIES of the ABORIGINES of 

 PORT STEPHENS, N. S. WALES. 



By W. J. Enuight, b.a. Syd. 



(Communicated by R. H. Mathews, l.s.) 



[Read before the Royal Society of N. 8. Wales, July 5, 1899. ~] 



The male aboriginal, on attaining the age of puberty, reaches the 

 most eventful period of his life. Hitherto his place has been 

 amongst the women and children, but he now passes through a 

 ceremony admitting him to a brotherhood whose secrets are 

 inviolable and whose power is more dreaded than any Vehmgericht. 

 Now filled with a sense of the dignity of manhood, he becomes 

 entitled to greater privileges than previously enjoyed. 



This ceremony of admission is known by various names in 

 different parts of the colony, but amongst the Kutthung 1 and other 

 tribes of the north-east coast it is called the Keeparra : I believe 

 that the first detailed account 2 of it, and its sister ceremony "the 

 Dalgai," was one written by Mr. R. H. Mathews. 



In December 1896 and again in December 1897, I sojourned 

 among the remnant of the Kutthung tribe at Port Stephens with- 

 out being able to elicit from them anything more valuable than 

 the reluctant admission that at the present time the youths are 

 initiated at Forster. 



I mentioned the difficulties I encountered in obtaining particulars 

 of their secret ceremonies to my friend Mr. R. H. Mathews, from 

 whom I have always received encouragement and assistance in all 

 ethnological work, and on his next visit to Maitland he drove 

 out with me to the native camp at Sawyer's Point on the Karuah 

 River. He was personally known to some of the men present 



1 Pronounced Kut-thung. 



2 Journ. Anthrop. Inst., xxvi.. 320 - 340. Proc. Roy. Soc. Vic, ix., N.S. 

 120 - 136. 



