m.

A child may not perhaps know that it has had a yunbeai given to it, and
may eat of it in ignorance, when immediately they say that child
sickens.

Should a boy or a girl eat plains turkey or bustard eggs while they
were yet wunnarl, or taboo, he or she would lose his or her sight.
Should they eat the eggs or flesh of kangaroo or piggiebillah, their
skins would break out in sores and their limbs wither.

Even honey is wunnarl at times to all but the very old or very young.
Fish is wunnarl for about four years after his Boorah to a boy, and
about four months after she is wirreebeeun, or young woman, to a girl.

When the wunnarl was taken off a particular kind of meat, a wizard
poured some of the melted fat and inside blood of that animal or bird,
as the case might be, over the boy, and rubbed it into him. The boy,
shaking and shivering, made a spluttering noise with his lips; after
that he could eat of the hitherto forbidden food.

This did not necessarily refer to his totem, but any food wunnarl to
him, though it is possible that there may have been a time in tribal
history, now forgotten, when totems were wunnarl, and these ceremonies
may be all that is left to point to that time.

When a boy, after his first Boorah, killed his first emu, whether it
was his Dhe, or totem, or not, his father made him lie on the bird
before it was cooked. Afterwards a wirreenun (wizard) and the father
rubbed the fat on the boy's joints, and put apiece of the flesh in his
mouth. 'The boy chewed it, making a noise as he did so of fright and
disgust; finally he dropped the meat from his mouth, making a blowing
noise through his lips of 'Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!' After that he could eat the
flesh.

A girl, too, had to be rubbed with the fat and blood of anything from
which the wunnarl was to be removed for her. No ceremony of this sort
would be gone through with the flesh, fat, or blood of any one's
yunbeai, or individual familiar animal, for under no circumstances
would any one kill or eat their yunbeai.

Concerning the yunbeai, or animal familiar of the individual, conferred
by the medicine men, more is to be said in the ensuing chapters. The
yunbeai answers to the Manitu obtained by Red Indians during the fast
at puberty; to the 'Bush Soul' of West Africa; to the Nagual of South
American tribes; and to the Nyarong of Borneo. The yunbeai has hitherto
been scarcely remarked on among Australian tribes. Mr. Thomas declares
it to be 'almost