MEETINGS OF TRIBES. 
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or to assist in the initiatory ceremonies by which 
young persons enter into the different grades of 
distinction amongst them. The manner and for- 
malities of meeting depend upon the cause for 
which they assemble. If the tribes have been long 
apart, many deaths may have occurred in the inte- 
rim; and as the natives do not often admit that the 
young or the strong can die from natural causes, 
they ascribe the event to the agency of sorcery, 
employed by individuals of neighbouring tribes. 
This must of course be expiated in some way when 
they meet, but the satisfaction required is regulated 
by the desire of the injured tribe to preserve ami- 
cable relations with the other, or the reverse. 
The following is an account of a meeting which 
I witnessed, between the natives of Moorunde (com- 
prising portions of several of the neighbouring 
tribes) and the Nar-wij-jerook, or Lake Bonney tribe, 
accompanied also by many of their friends. This 
meeting had been pre-arranged, as meetings of large 
bodies of natives never take place accidentally, for 
even when a distant tribe approaches the territory 
of another unexpectedly, messengers are always sent 
on in advance, to give the necessary warning. The 
object of the meeting in question was to perform 
the initiatory ceremonies upon a number of young 
men belonging to both of the tribes. In the Murray 
district, when one tribe desires another to come from 
a distance to perform these ceremonies, young men 
are sent off with messages of invitation, carrying 
