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[Page 167]
155
INSTITUTIONS AND LAWS
who gave the important information about the sacred want, Dhurumbulum, the revolting practice is unknown to his tribe. White men have stated that this custom was observed in several parts. From all I have heard, I conclude that it is actually observed by some tribes, but not by all. It is a mystery of wickedness and folly that such an unnatural custom could be introduced, even among savage people. it is still more mysterious that the thought of such an act could be suggested in vision to the holy prophet Ezekiel. In the Aborigines it seems to be one mode - The most degrading mode that ever entered the mind of man - of carrying out the impulses of the spirit, common in all ages, which animated the pagan stoic and the christian ascetic. By the flogging and the knocking out of the tooth, the young men are taught to glory in suffering anguish, and to believe that it is manly to endure pain without a cry or a groan. On the same principle it may be held to be meritorious to inflict on themselves, without wincing, the utmost conceivable violation of the sense of taste. The more repugnant the process they pass through, the greater the virtue they exhibit, in their own estimation.
After the last ceremony the young men were allowed to go away. For three or four months they were not allowed to come within three hundred yards of a woman. But once in the course of that time a great smoke was made with burning boughs, and the young men were brought up on one side of it, while women appeared, at a distance, on the other side. Then the young men went away for another month or so. At the end of that time they assembled again and took part in a sham fight. This completed the long process of initiation, From that time they were free to exercise all the privileges of men, among which are the eating of the flesh of kangaroos and emus, and the taking of wives. This long course of alternate fasting and suffering is a very severe ordeal. It has often been observed that young men come out of it exhausted and sometimes half dead.
During the intervals between the ceremonies of the Bora, the candidates are carefully instructed by the old men in their traditions, in the very exact laws of consanguinity and marriage, hereafter set forth, in the rules concerning the use of particular kinds of food, and other things. They are truly a law-abiding people. Probably no community in Christendom observes the law deem most sacred so exactly as the Australlian tribes observe their traditional rules. That kind and measure of moral purity which their un-written law enjoins is maintained with the utmost vigilance. A breach of morality, in regard to the relation between the sexes, exposes the offender to the risk of death. He must stand as a mark for the spears of his tribe, which may in many cases have cut short the life of the culprit.
The ceremonial of the Bora is the great education system by which this exact observance of the laws is inculcated.