n, each took up a position at
one of the various points of the ridges, surrounding the clear open
space where the corrobborees were to be. The Wahn, crows, had one
point; the Dummerh, pigeons, another; the Mahthi, dogs, another, and so
on; Byamee and his tribe, Byahmul the black swans tribe, Oooboon, the
blue tongued lizard, and many other chiefs and their tribes, each had
their camp on a different point. When all had arrived there were
hundreds and hundreds assembled, and many and varied were the nightly
corrobborees, each tribe trying to excel the other in the fancifulness
of their painted get-up, and the novelty of their newest song and
dance. By day there was much hunting and feasting, by night much
dancing and singing; pledges of friendship exchanged, a dillibag for a
boomerang, and so on; young daughters given to old warriors, old women
given to young men, unborn girls promised to old men, babies in arms
promised to grown men; many and diverse were the compacts entered into,
and always were the Wirreenun, or doctors of the tribes consulted.

After some days the Wirreenun told the men of the tribes that they were
going to hold a borah. But on no account must the innerh, or women,
know. Day by day they must all go forth as if to hunt and then prepare
in secret the borah ground. Out went the man each day. They cleared a
very large circle quite clear, then they built an earthen dam round
this circle, and cleared a pathway leading into the thick bush from the
circle, and built a dam on either side of this pathway.

When all these preparations were finished, they had, as usual, a
corrobboree at night. After this had been going on for some time, one
of the old Wirreenun walked right away from the crowd as if he were
sulky. He went to his camp, to where he was followed by another
Wirreenun, and presently the two old fellows began fighting. Suddenly,
when the attention of the blacks was fixed on this fight, there came a
strange, whizzing, whirring noise from the scrub round. The women and
children shrank together, for the sudden, uncanny noise frightened
them. And they knew that it was made by the spirits who were coming to
assist at the initiation of the boys into young manhood. The noise
really sounded, if you had not the dread of spirits in your mind, just
as if some one had a circular piece of wood at the end of a string and
were whirling it round and round.

As the noise went on, the women said, in an awestricken to