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Here the older women were singing Boorah songs. Some held their breasts as a sign they had sons among the initiates; others put their hands on their shoulders, which showed they had brothers going to be made young men. All the women had leafy twigs tied round their wrists and ankles as the men had.
At length there came a night when was heard a whizzing, whirling boom far in the scrub. As the first echo of it reached the camp, the women, such as were still young enough to bear children, stopped their ears, for should any such hear the Gurraymi, the women's name for the Gayandi, or Boorah spirit's voice, that spirit will first make them mad, then kill them.
On the fourth day the men took them about ten miles, and camped with them where they could hear faintly in the distance the noise of the main camp; so they knew they were near the place chosen for the Durramunga, or Little Boorah. Just before dawn next morning each Munthdeegun took his Boorahbayyi, or partially initiated one, to the Durramunga.
The verb baia or biai, to make or shape, whence Mr. Ridley derived Baiame, is not known to me in Euahlayi. Wir djuri has BAI, a footmark, and Byamee left footmarks on the rocks, but that is probably a chance coincidence. My informant said that he was instructed as to Byamee in his first Boorah, or initiation.
The wirreenuns, they say, swallow their stones to keep them safe. At each Boorah a taboo is taken off food. After a third Boorah a man could eat fish, after a fourth honey, after a fifth what he liked. He was then, too, shown and taught the meanings of the tribal message-sticks, and the big Boorah one of Byamee. As few men now have ever been to five Boorahs, few know anything about these last.
With the loss of the stone his life spirit would be weakened, and the strength of the Boorah spirit, with which he was now endowed, be used against him instead of for him, as would be the case as long as he kept the stone.
The newcomers and the men who met them walked round the yard at a measured beat, lifting one leg and throwing up one arm each time the cry of 'Wah! wah! wah! was given, for here too the enumeration of geographical names went on. When the Boorah song was over, the men marched out of the yard; closely behind them the two oldest men with the tufted spears; the Boorah boys closely after them.
The Bralgah birds have a Boorah ground at the back of our old horse-paddock, a smooth, well-beaten circle, where they dance the grotesque dances peculiar to them, which are really most amusing to watch, somewhat like a set of kitchen lancers into which some dignified dames have got by mistake, and a curious mixture is the dance of dignity and romping.
After having given all necessary information, the Gooyeanawannah would return to his tribe; the wirreenun to whom he had given the Doolooboorah, or message-stick, would send it on by the messenger of his tribe, and so with others, until all were summoned, each tribe letting it be known that a Boorah summons had been received by sounding the Gayandi, which would carry its own tale to those in the camp.
Parker, by whom the information is given us, is put up at funerals, presumably to Byamee by the community or its representative. Mrs. Parker adds: "Though we say that actually these people have but two attempts at prayers, one at the grave and one at the inner Boorah ring, I think perhaps we are wrong.
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