NATIVE TRIBES OF PORT DARWIN. 
643 
the bush. After the news has been spread a corrobborie is held, and 
they are then removed to a place on the Adelaide River and taken in 
charge by those whose duty it is to train the youngsters in the arts and 
lore of their forbears. Here I was told they lived in a large wurlev, 
which would accommodate all the boys. The boys’ house of the South 
Sea Islands came to mind, and I have much regretted that 1 was unable 
to accept an invitation made me to accompany a boy who was taken, 
and see for myself what was actually the case. Asa fact, besides one 
lad who has so far eluded capture, and a few living on the premises 
of their masters, no boys between fourteen and nineteen are seen at 
Port Darwin. 
Circumcision is not practised by the Larraki‘a ; it is said that it was 
in vogue at cue time, and a reason was given for the custom falling 
into desuetude that the skin became too tender. 
While at ail times blacks are constantly coming and going at the 
Port Darwin camp, every year at the close of the wet season there is a 
genera] migration on a day previously fixed. They go away in good 
condition with sleek skins, and come back, some after a week or two, 
and others later, thin, rough -coated, and dirty. I do not learn that 
any particular rites or corrobbories are necessarily observed : even the 
reason for this annual migration has been always kept a close secret. 
In one year, 1890, I was informed that after two days’ journeying the 
ceremony of making young men would be held, and later I beard one 
or two, accompanying the recital with excellent mimicry, telling my 
boys what had occurred. Incidentally I gathered that the young men 
each shouldered a heavy branch of a tree (the speaker showed the 
size, the small of his thigh) and marched round and round in a circle 
with downcast mien, their eyes fastened on the ground; then they 
lay prone on the earth, their faces buried in their hands ; grass was 
placed over them to carry the flames over 1 heir bodies, and fire set to it. 
The practice of taking the kidney fat obtains, and the victim in 
rare cases, it is said, occasionally recovers ; but the idea of eating the 
flesh of a human being, adult or child, is an abhorrence. 
Parturition is in secret. If the pangs of labour come on on the 
march, the woman will go aside from the track, sometimes attended by 
a female, while the others go on, and the woman, having been 
delivered, after a slight rest rejoins them ; if in camp, the wurlev is 
reserved to her accommodation. The child, born of a very light tan 
colour, is at the first opportunity coated with ashes. 
Toothache, neuralgia, headaches, coughs and colds, and malarial 
fever are the usual ailments, principally confined to women and children, 
and on the whole there is little sickness. In syphilitic diseases the 
sufferer is buried in mud to the navel for several days.* Dangerous 
illness is ascribed to an enemy pointing a bone, or to his burning 
some hair or other personal belonging of the native stricken down. 
At death there is woeful lamentation, beating of hands, and 
wailing, but the manifestations of grief are only within the family 
circle of the deceased — not from want of feeling, the others speak 
softly, mournfully, and, I may add, reverently of the deceased, but 
avoiding mention of bis name when stating the fact. The body is 
sometimes placed in a tree, and sometimes buried in a sitting posture. 
* Mr. F. H. Wells also refers to this treatment as practised in the Fiamantina 
country. See Reports of the Association Adv. Sci., vol. v., p. 516. 
