CEREMONY OF WHAREPIN. 
339 
strangers would make many mistakes, imagining 
that they were putting down the name, when in 
reality they were marking some phrase, signifying 
that his name could not be mentioned by the one 
applied to. They have no objection to meet each 
other after the ceremony, nor do they decline speak- 
ing, but there is this peculiarity in their conduct, 
that if one gives food, or any thing else to the other, 
it is either laid on the ground for him to take, or is 
given through the intervention of a third person, in 
the gentlest and mildest manner possible, whereas to 
another native it would be jerked, perhaps much in 
the same way that a bone is thrown to a dog. There 
are other instances in which the names of natives 
are never allowed to be spoken, as those of a father or 
mother-in-law, of a son-in-law and some cases arising 
from a connection with each other’s wives. In 
speaking, therefore, of one another, or introducing 
persons to distant natives, a very round about way of 
describing them has often to be adopted, yet so inti- 
mately are neighbouring tribes acquainted with the 
peculiar relations subsisting between the members 
of each, that there is rarely any difficulty in com- 
prehending who the individual is that is alluded to. 
Among the Adelaide tribes, there is no circumstance 
but death that makes them unwilling to mention 
the name of any of their acquaintances, and this 
cause of unwillingness I believe extends equally all 
over the continent. 
The ceremony of tattooing is practised among 
z 2 
