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I think it is very clever of these mediums to have decided that spirits all have one sort of voice. At these meetings there would be great rivalry among the wirreenuns. The one who could produce the most magical stones would be supposed to be the most powerful.
The old wirreenuns, dipping their stone knives in the blood, touched with them the lips of all present. Then the bodies were put on the edge of the sacred fire and the other initiates taken a little further into the scrub. There they were tried in many ways. With the Boorah spirits whistling and whizzing all round them, spears were pointed at them.
There each Munthdeegun told his boy he could sleep that night; he would go to sleep the boy he had been, to wake in the morning a new man; his courage had now been tried, and in the morning a new name and a sacred stone would be given to him. The Gayandi would settle their names that night and tell the wirreenuns.
After the first whirling of the bull roarers and calling of the creek names, the Gooyeanawannah, or messengers, prepare for a journey, and when ready, the wirreenuns start them off in various directions to summon neighbouring tribes from hundreds of miles round to attend the Boorah.
Should he, however, be indifferent, or ill-disposed towards the individual or his tribe, he completes the process by going through the form already given, or rather when there are two wirreenuns at the Boogahroo, the receiver of the hair gives it to the other one, who sings the death-song, warms the gooweera, and burns the hair.
Then the wirreenuns snatched up the coals left from the weapons and rubbed them into their limbs, trampling as they did so on the edge of the fire, which did not seem to burn them, rubbing and chanting until the sacred coals were supposed to be absorbed by them, from which they would derive new powers.
Now you can meet the Boorah spirit, Now will he harm you not. He will know his spirit is in you. For this is the sign, A front tooth gone. That is his sign, He will know you by it. Some of the wirreenuns buried these teeth by the Boorah fire, others carefully wrapped them up to keep as charms, or to send to other tribes, each according to the individual custom of his tribe.
No wonder trees have such a place in the old religions of the world, and wirreenuns, even as do Buddhists, love to linger beneath their branches the one holding converse with his spirit friends, the other cultivating the perfect peace. There would not be much perfect peace about a wirreenun's communing with the spirits if it happened to be in mosquito time.
The black fellow won't allow his womenkind a heaven of rest, for the spirit women are supposed to make weapons which the wirreenuns journey towards the sunset clouds to get the women's heaven is in the west giving in exchange animal food and opossum rugs, no animals being there. For carrying water they used to make bags of opossum skins.
After the fifth Boorah the mystery of the Gayandi was revealed and the bull roarers shown oval pieces of wood pointed at both ends, fastened to a string and swung round; but though this was shown, the wirreenuns told them that the spirit's voice was really in this wood animating it.
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