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[Page 168]
156
INSTITUTIONS AND LAWS
The name "Bora" is derived from the "bor" or "boorr," the belt of manhood is there conferred upon the candidate. This "bor" is supposed to be endowed with magical power, so that by throwing it at an enemy sickness can be injected.
According to some, Baia-me is supposed to be present at the Bora, and is personated by one of the old men ; other say it is TURRAMUL, the agent of Baia-me, or mediate, who appears. As above mentioned, in some of the tribes a sacred want, "Dhurumbulum," given them by Baiame is exhibited, and the sigh of this want as waved by the old men in sight of the candidates imparts many qualities. Before I heard of this want, a blackfellow from Twofold Bay, near the south-east corner of this Colony, at a distance of full 600 miles from the Namoi, told me that in his country "Dhurumbulum" was the name of the Creator of all things.
Near the junction of the Hunter and the Isis, a few miles from Aberdeen, is the consecrated spot where, for generations, the blacks have held their Bora. To this spot I was taken by Mr. M'Donald, a squatter residing in the neighbourhood. It is a pleasant well-wooded glen at the foot of a high hill. On the ground is the horizontal figure of a man, roughly modelled by laying down sticks and covering them with earth so as to raise it from four to seven inches above the grouud [sic]. The arms and legs of the figure are stretched out as in the attitude assumed by a blackfellow in dancing, the hands being about on a level with the ears. The figure is 22 feet long and 12 feet wide from hand to hand. The body is 4 feet wide, and it the knees were straightened it would be 25 feet from head to foot. Rough as the work it, there can be no mistake about it ; and though, of course, no features are distinguishable, the attitude has a lifelike expression to those who seen an Aboriginal dance. Around this spot are 100 or 120 trees marked with the tomahawk in various regular patterns, some with concentric curves, some with simple angles. In some the marks reached as high as 15 feet from the ground. Near the head of the human figure is a tree naturally bent, as is not uncommon in this country, into an almost horizontal position ; and along this tree the blacks have cut marks like the footprints of an emu.
While the young men are awaiting the ceremony, they are made to lie flat on the ground just in the posture of the figure above described. Then a stuffed emu is carried along the bending tree over the footprints, as if it were walking on them, and on coming down to the ground walks round the scene by a path of 150 yards. The candidates are made to pass through an ordeal of pain. But there is no knocking out of a tooth ; nor is the revolting practice mentioned by Mr. Honery practised here. The account the black give of this ordeal is that their god comes down through the trees with a great noise, and tosses each of the candidates up in the air, to see if he is good for anything ; and if they are bad he tears them to pieces. They say this deity is very good and very powerful. He can pull up trees by the roots and remove mountains.