406 
SEPARATION OF THE TRIBES. 
position, with regard to communication with the 
tribes occupying the main line of route of its 
original division ; modified also, perhaps, in some 
degree, by the local circumstances of the country 
through which it may have spread. 
Commencing with the parent tribe, located as I 
have supposed, first upon the north-west coast, we 
find, from the testimony of Captain Flinders and 
Dampier, that the male natives of that part of the 
country, have two front teeth of the upper jaw 
knocked out at the age of puberty, and that they 
also undergo the rite of circumcision ; but it does 
not appear that any examination was made with 
sufficient closeness to ascertain, whether* any other 
ceremony was conjoined with that of circumcision. 
How far these ceremonies extend along the north- 
western or western coasts we have no direct evidence, 
but at Swan River, King George’s Sound, and Cape 
Arid, both customs are completely lost, and for the 
whole of the distance intervening between these places, 
and extending fully six hundred miles in straight line 
along the coast, the same language is so far spoken, 
that a native of King George’s Sound, who accom- 
panied me when travelling from one point to the 
other, could easily understand, and speak to any 
natives we met with. This is, however, an unusual 
case, nor indeed am I aware that there is any other 
part of Australia where the same dialect continues 
to be spoken by the Aborigines, with so little varia- 
* Vide note at the bottom of page 332, chapter V. 
