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[Page 60]
there is a tradition here that long ago, at a Man Making, the Head man made a bungle of it and from that time it was disconued, the tooth had to be broken off at the first blow, no second one was allowed = this applied to the Blacks living on the coast from Port Macquarie to the Seal Rocks, Mr Wynter tells me that what may be called the Grand Pass,= was for a Darkie to break two peices of stick to show that he had been enitiated, I have spoken to them about that but get no information, only a look of astonishment and the question, "Who told you about that". Mr Wynter says he could get not informan except it was connected in some way with the two spirits = and that Blackfellows always did like that, the meaning of it was evident quite lost. From reading and from hearsay from the Blacks it was conducted much the same all over Australia, I do not know if the Tasmanian Natives practised it, But in the North & West circumcision was practiced as part of the Man Making, but never here, A Black who had been up in the Gulf = up about Cape York, discribed to one of our Yellow fellows who was properly [?] how the rite was performed up there and he informed me of it = All through it is a trial of the fortitude of the Boy who is starved and
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