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Updated: May 26, 2025
By that time the other tribes began to arrive. First came from each tribe the boys to be initiated and the Munthdeeguns, or men in charge of them. The men were painted, and had leafy twigs tied round their wrists and ankles, as had the boys also, and all carried in their hands small branches of green. Those especially in charge of boys held, too, a painted spear with a waywah on top of it.
As the Munthdeeguns passed their totem-marked trees, or images, which would be those of the boys in their charge for each guardian was a relation of the same totem as his charge they would perform some magical feat, such as producing gubberahs, charcoal, gypsum, and so on, uttering as they did so a little chant about that totem. The boy's eyes are closed all this time and his head bent down.
Then the Munthdeeguns disappear down the track into the scrub. When they are out of sight the women are released, that they may get ready to travel to where the Durrawunga, or Little Boorah, will be held in about four days' time, at about ten miles distance.
And only when the fear, the abasement, is gone does the true reverence come, which makes the most primitive creed a living religion. As the Munthdeeguns pass the sacred fire they throw in a weapon each. This done they place their charges in slightly scooped-out places, already prepared in the inner ring. Then they bid them, on pain of death, not to look up whatever happens.
The boys, who are painted red, are beckoned into the middle of the ring, where their respective Munthdeeguns daub them with white. That done, each man seizing his charge, hoists him on to his shoulder, and dances round the ring with him. Then the old women are told to bid the boys good-bye.
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