Nothing, I believe, is known of the origin of the rites here described; they have been practised, undoubtedly, during a period incalculable; but, it may be conjectured, they were made a part of the laws of this people, for the purpose of separating clearly those classes, inferior because of their youth and status, from those to whom belonged the right to take part in battles, to choose wives, to indulge in certain luxuries, and to exercise, with restrictions prescribed by the form of tribal government, power and authority. Without some such mode of denoting the classes to which privileges belonged, there would have been confusion and constant quarrels.
It is not certain that the rites known as Mur-rum Tur-uk-ur-uk, or any rites on a girl attaining maturity, were generally observed throughout Australia; but it is at least probable that in all parts some sign was given when a female arrived at a marriageable age; otherwise there would have been amongst all the tribes a possibility of the frequent occurrence of crimes similar to those which disgrace the whites; and in the absence of any means of denoting those who had arrived at maturity, there would have been a difficulty in bringing an offender to punishment. No account of any crime of this class has come to my knowledge as having occurred amongst natives living in their natural wild
goat dung; this ceremony, like those of masonry, being conducted to the sound of music. Afterwards there came from behind a kind of screen or shrine, uncouth and terrible sounds, such as he had never heard before. These, he was told, emanated from a spirit called Ukuk. He afterwards brought to me the instruments with which the fetich-man makes this noise. It is a kind of whistle made of hollowed mangrove wood, about two inches in length, and covered at one end with a scrap of bat's wing. For a period of five days after initiation the novice wears an apron of dry palm-leaves, which I have frequently seen.
"The initiation of the girls is performed by elderly females, who call themselves Ngembi. They go into the forest, clear a space, sweep the ground carefully, come back to the town and build a sacred hut, which no male may enter. They return to the clearing in the forest, taking with them the Igonji, or novice. It is necessary that she should have never been to that place before, and that she fast during the whole of the ceremony, which lasts three days. All this time a fire is kept burning in the wood. From morning to night, and from night to morning, a Ngembi sits beside it and feeds it, singing with a cracked voice, 'The fire will never die out!' The third night is passed in the sacred hut; the Igonji is rubbed with black, red, and white paints, and as the men beat drums outside, she cries 'Okanda, yo! yo! yo!' which reminds one of the Evohe! of the ancient Bacchantes. The ceremonies which are performed in the hut and in the wood are kept secret from the men, and I can say but little of them. Mongilomba had evidently been playing the spy, but was very reserved on the subject. Should it be known, he said, that he had told me what he had, the women would drag him into a fetich-house and would flog him perhaps till he was dead. It is pretty certain, however, that these rites, like those of the Bona Dea, are essentially of a Phallic nature; for Mongilomba once confessed that, having peeped through the chinks of the hut, he saw a ceremony like that which is described in Petronius Arbiter. …
"During the novitiate which precedes initiation, the girls are taught religious dances; the men are instructed in the science of fetich. It is then that they are told that there are certain kinds of food which are forbidden to their clan. One clan may not eat crocodile, nor another hippopotamus, nor a third buffalo. These are relics of the old animal worship. The spirit Ukuk (or Mwetyi, as he is called in the Skekani country) is supposed to live in the bowels of the earth, and to come to the upper world when there is any business to perform."—Savage Africa, pp. 245-8.
"On reaching puberty, young women, on a given occasion, are placed in the sort of gallery already described as in every house, and are there surrounded completely with mats, so that neither the sun nor any fire can be seen. In this cage they remain for several days. Water is given to them, but no food. … A girl is disgraced for life if it is known that she has seen fire or the sun during this initiatory ordeal."—Scenes and Studies of Savage Life, p. 94, by Gilbert Malcolm Sproat.
