ent occasions to
obliterate interdicted words, and insert new ones."

The following custom is Australian, and it belongs to a class which
should always be noticed when found. This is because it appears and
re-appears in numerous parts of the world, in different forms, and,
apparently, independent of ethnological affinities.

A family selects some natural object as its symbol, badge, or armorial
bearing.

All natural objects of the same class then become sacred; _i.e._, the
family which has adopted, respects them also.

The modes of showing this respect are various. If the object be an
animal, it is not killed; if a plant, not plucked.

The native term for the object thus chosen is _Kobong_.

A man cannot marry a woman of the same _Kobong_.

Until we know the sequence of the cause and effect in the case of the
Australian _Kobong_, we have but little room for speculation as to its
origin. Is the plant or animal adopted by a particular family selected
because it was previously viewed with a mysterious awe, or is it
invested with the attributes of sacro-sanctity because it has been
chosen by the family? This has yet to be investigated.

Meanwhile, as Captain Gray truly remarks, the Australian _Kobong_ has
elements in common with the Polynesian _tabu_! Might he not have added
that the _names_ are probably the same? The change from _t_ to _k_, and
the difference between a nasal and a vowel termination, are by no means
insuperable objections.

He also adds that it has a counterpart with the American system of
_totem_; although the exact degree to which the comparison runs on all
fours is undetermined.

But the disuse of certain words on the death of kinsmen, and the
_Kobong_ are not the only customs common to the Australian and American.

The admission to the duties and privileges of manhood is preceded by a
probation. What this is in the Mandan tribe of the Sioux Americans, and
the extent to which it consists in the infliction and endurance of
revolting and almost incredible cruelties, may be seen in Mr. Catlin's
description--the description of an eye-witness. In Australia it is the
_Babu_ that cries for the youths that have arrived at puberty. Suddenly,
and at night, a cry is heard in the woods. Upon hearing this, the men of
the neighbourhood take the youths to a secluded spot previously fixed
upon. The ceremony then takes place. Sham fights, dances, partial
mutilations of the body, _e.g._, the knocking out of a