XXV111. ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS. 



to the scene of operations we were frequently requested, sometimes 

 ordered, to leave again. 



"The actual Bora ground, situate about a quarter of a mile from 

 the main camp, was a space one hundred yards long, and forty 

 yards wide, surrounded by a close packed bush fence ten feet high. 

 To permit of the cutting of the various figures and designs on the 

 ground, all small bushes and grass had been removed, and in some 

 parts the smaller trees. Two narrow circled passages, also pro- 

 tected by packed bush wood, were the entrance and exit. These 

 were guarded day and night by warriors. The young members of 

 the tribe who were to be initiated, arrived each in charge of an 

 older warrior, who appeared to act as sponsor, the candidates 

 having their heads shrouded in blankets. The proceedings com- 

 menced at the end of the enclosure where a couple of large figures 

 — male and female — had been cut in the ground and terminated 

 at the other end where a huge mound figure of a man had been 

 made. Before and around these and the various other symbols 

 and figures shown in the photographs, the warriors went through 

 certain marching and posturing, which in many instances seemed 

 to have no connection with the device round which they were 

 grouped. Such information as I could glean from an interpreter 

 present, also appeared to have very little bearing on the 

 ceremony, and the final impression I gathered was that I was 

 being wilfully misled, or else that the ceremony itself was almost 

 meaningless. After leaving the Bora ground the novices were 

 taken away into a remote part of the forest, where the removing 

 of a front tooth, and the placing of tribal marks on each was to 

 be effected." 



(b) Mr. R. H. Mathews, l.s., exhibited some relics of the 

 aborigines as follows : — 



A block of stone cut from the wall of a cave in Howe's Valley, 

 County of Hunter, containing the imprint of a hand, done in 

 splashwork or stencil, with white paint. 



Several stone knives found on digging into the floor of a cave 

 or rock shelter on the Hawkesbury River, about a mile and a half 

 below Wiseman's Ferry. 



