CHAPTER V. 
CEREMONIES AND SUPERSTITIONS — FORMS OF BURIAL — 
MOURNING CUSTOMS — RELIGIOUS IDEAS — EMPIRICS, ETC. 
The ceremonies and superstitions of the natives 
are both numerous and involved in much obscurity ; 
indeed it is very questionable if any of them are un- 
derstood even by themselves. Almost all the tribes 
impose initiatory rites upon the young, through 
which they must pass from one stage of life to 
another, until admitted to the privileges and rights 
of manhood. These observances differ greatly in 
different parts of the continent, independently of 
local or distinctive variations indicative of the tribe 
to which a native may belong. 
Thus at the Gulf of Carpentaria, the rite of cir- 
cumcision is performed ; at Swan River, King 
George’s Sound, and nearly three hundred miles to 
the eastward of the latter place, no such rite exists. 
Round the head of the Great Australian Bight, and 
throughout the Port Lincoln Peninsula, not only is 
this rite performed, but a still more extraordi- 
nary one conjoined with it. # Descending the east 
side of Spencer’s and St. Vincent’s Gulf, and around 
* “ Finditur usque ad urethram a parte infera penis.’ 
