Hardman — Hahits and Customs of Natives of Kimherley. 75 
cidence with the Levitical law, and that is, that during the period of 
menstruation the females isolate themselves for a week, and for that 
time carefully avoid the most casual meeting with men. 
I could not ascertain that any special ceremonies take place at the 
marriages of these people. 
Initiation Eites, 
Next to the Marriage Laws in interest come the initiatory rites for 
the young hoys and men. These are very remarkable, and so far as I 
can learn, they are more severe than any practised by other native 
Australians. They are chiefly confined to the males, but in some 
districts the young females are also subjected to painful operations. 
The young boy, known colonially as a crawler," is called 
" Yadup" till he is five years of age. He then becomes a " Chooka- 
doo," and usually is given as a boy-wife to one of the young men. At 
about ten years of age the initiatory rites commence. The first is cir- 
cumcision — an operation performed with a fragment of shell, or a piece 
of sharp flint — and at the same period the two upper front teeth are 
knocked out. He is now known as Balillie. A year later an opera- 
tion is performed which produces an artificial Hypospadias : that is, 
the urethra is slit from the glans penis to the scrotum, and the edges of 
the cut are prevented from healing by the insertion of a flat piece of 
stone. The mode of performing this operation was thus described to 
me ; it always takes place at a grand Corroboree : — 
A shallow trench is dug, into which the boy is flung. One man 
lies across his chest, another across his legs, and then the " BuUia" 
man or Medicine man operates very leisurely with a piece of shell or 
with a sharp flint. In the meantime the women have been removed 
to a distance — they are supposed to know nothing of these ceremonies — 
and the men sitting around make a loud and confused noise — some by 
clapping their hands on their thighs, others by whirling rapidly the 
mero-mero, a thin flat stick, which, thus used, creates a heavy boom- 
ing sound. These whirling-sticks, used to disown the shrieks of the 
victim, as well as the flint or shell-knives used in the operation, are 
considered sacred, and are not to be looked upon by women under pain 
of death. 
It seems by no means certain what the meaning of this operation is-. 
The natives are very reticent about it, and either pretend to be, or are 
really unable, to explain it. Two theories have been mooted — one that 
it is the outcome of Malthusian ideas ; but this can hardly be, because 
