10

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MAN-MAKING AND OTHER CEREMONIES

The practices of circumcision and subincision were, in my opinion,
introduced into Australia from the north-west in comparatively recent
times. They spread over Central Australia, but did not reach the south-
west of West Australia nor Victoria, and they affected New South Wales
only on the north-west corner and Queensland on the western boundary.
These rites were unknown among the Kabi and Wakka and surrounding tribes.
The other ceremonies attending initiation to manhood were, with local
variations, common to the whole of Australia. If they had not been so
long disused in the settled districts, the details there would probably
not differ very much from those so minutely described by Spencer and
Gillen as characterising initiation in Central Australia.

Two words were employed by the Kabi to designate the man-making
ceremonies, viz., Dhur (a circle) and Kīvar-yëngga (man-making). I am
not aware of initiation on a grand scale having taken place after 1865,
the date of my first acquaintance with the natives. In former years,
special places for conducting the ceremonies were selected, on which
various tribes would converge, in order that they might all participate
by contributing candidates and assisting in the performances. Places
specially named to me were Boobangery on the Yabber run, Waraba near
Caboolture, and Biuoraba near Ipswich. I shall endeavour to fuse to-
gether several accounts, in which the sequence of events is uncertain.

Certain individuals, called Kamaran, i.e., headmen, qualified by
their experience, were appointed to conduct the proceedings. The
various tribes camped apart and the initiation of the youth of one tribe
was superintended by Kamaran of another. An essential requisite was a
large circle, or Dhur, which, as was done elsewhere, would be formed by
a low bank of earth. The proceedings, which, according to one account,
covered about a month, begin by the youths having to spend a night
camped within the circle. They have no fire but are allowed rugs of
kangaroo skin. In the morning they are taken out of the ring, each in
charge of Kamaran, who watch them and direct their movements.

The women are camping apart from the men and no intercourse is
permitted between them and the novitiates. The latter frequently
repeat a spell - "Ngudha, ngudha, ngudha, ngudha, mīnya, mīnya, ka!"
As my informant did not know the meaning of these words, I conclude
that they were either corrupt or borrowed from another dialect, or
else so archaic that their meaning had been forgotten.

On the first day the older men hold a grant[grand?] corooboree.

While being conducted by the Kamaran, if a snake is met with, the
Bondaban (bull-roarer) is whirled, the snake is killed and shown to the
youths, but they are not allowed to partake of it. In fact, fasting is
part of the ordeal. In the evening, samples of mundha (prohibited food)
are handed round among them for inspection. Their hunger is appeased
surreptitiously by portions of possum being given to them without
knowledge of the Kamaran. The concealment is probably fictitious. At
this juncture a rug is wrapped about the head to hide the youth from the
old men, just as mother-in-law and son-in-law cover the head at times to
avoid seeing each other. The boys are prohibited from looking up at the
sky.

On the second day they are washed and the hair is shaved off all
parts of the body but the head. In some parts of Australia the hair is
plucked out, and probably this would be the primitive practice with the
Kabi, Wakka and adjoining tribes.

Various fire ceremonies are performed, corresponding to the Engwura
of the Arunta. In one of these, the young men join hands and march round
a fire, the yound[sic] women simultaneously doing the same at another fire.

(over).