oorah a stone was given to a man, and when he had the five he could
marry.

After each Boorah all the figures and embankments are destroyed.

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.
After a man has been to one Boorah he can have war weapons and is a
warrior, but not until he has been to five can he join or be one of the
dorrunmai--sort of chiefs--who hold councils of war, but have few
privileges beyond being accepted authorities as to war and hunting.
With the wirreenuns rests the real power, by reason of their skill in
magic.

Besides Boorahs are minor corroboree meetings where marriages are
arranged; meetings where the illegality of marriages is gone into, and,
if necessary, exchanges effected or arranged; meetings where the
wirreenuns of the Boogahroo produce the bags of hair, etc., and
vendettas are sworn; meetings of Boodther, or giving, where each person
receives and gives presents. A person who went to a Boodther without a
goolay full of presents would be thought a very poor thing indeed.

Of course every meeting has a corroboree as part of it.

Every totem even has its own special corroboree and time for having it,
as the Beewees, or iguanas, when the pine pollen is failing and the red
dust-storms come. And if you abused these dust-storms to a Beewee
black, you would insult him: it is not dust, it is the pollen off the
pines, and so a multiplex totem to him!

The winds belong to various totems, and the rains are claimed by the
totem whose wind it was that blew it up.

If a storm comes up without wind it belongs to Bohrah, the kangaroo.

The big mountainous clouds when they come from the south-west are said
to be Mullyan, the eagle-hawk, who makes the south-west wind claimed by
Maira, paddy melon totem, one of whose multiplex totems Mullyan is.

The crow keeps the cold west wind in a hollow log, as she was too fond
of blowing up hurricanes; she escapes sometimes, but the crow hunts her
back. But they say the log is rotting and she will get away yet, when
there will be great wreckage and quite a change in climates. [Here we see
the usual antagonism of crow and eagle-hawk.--A. L.]

Away to the north-west a tribe of blacks have almost a monopoly in
wind-making, hol