and painful as it must have been, it was said they were to remain all night; and until the ceremony was concluded they were neither to look up nor take any refreshment whatsoever.
The Carrahdis (Coradjes) now began some of their mystical rites. One of them suddenly fell upon the ground, and throwing himself into a variety of attitudes, accompanied with every gesticulation that could be extorted by pain, appeared to be at length delivered of a bone, which was to be used in the ensuing ceremony. He was during this apparently painful process encircled by a crowd of natives, who danced around him, singing vociferously, while one or more beat him on the back until the bone was produced. Another went through the same process. These mummeries were to show the boys that they would suffer little pain, as the more the Carrahdis endured the less would be felt by them. The ceremonies were resumed at daylight on the following morning.
The pictures in Collins's work represent—
1st. The young men, fifteen in number, seated at the head of the Yoo-lahng, with the operators running upon their hands and feet and imitating the dogs of the country. In this manner power over the dog was given to the youth.
2nd. The young men seated as before. A stout, robust native carries on his shoulders a pat-ta-go-rang, or kangaroo made of grass, and another bears a load of brushwood. The other figures seated about are singing, and beating time to the steps of the two loaded men, who appear scarcely able to move under the burdens they carry. Halting every now and then, and limping, the men finally deposit the loads at the feet of the young men, and the two retire from the Yoo-lahng. The man carrying the brushwood had thrust one or two flowering shrubs through the septum of the nose, and presented an extraordinary appearance. By this offering of the dead kangaroo was meant the power that was now given the youths of killing that animal; the brushwood perhaps represented its haunt.
3rd. The youths still sitting in the Yoo-lahng, the actors make for themselves tails of grass, and imitate the motions of a herd of kangaroos, one man beating time with a club on a shield. This was emblematical of one of their future exercises, the hunting of the kangaroo.
4th. The men, as a herd of kangaroos, pass by the boys, and each one as he passes divests himself of his long grass tail, catches up a boy, and carries him off on his shoulders.
5th. The boys are placed in a cluster, standing with their heads inclined on their breasts, and their hands clasped together, and after an interval passed in the performance of more than ordinarily mysterious rites, the boys stand in a group, and fronting them are two men, one seated on the stump of a tree bearing another man on his shoulders, both with their arms extended. Behind these are a number of bodies lying with their faces toward the ground, as close to each other as they can lie, and at the foot of another stump of a tree are two other figures in the same position as the two first described. The boys and their attendants approach the first of these figures, the latter moving from side to side, lolling out their tongues and staring widely and horribly with their eyes. The boys are now led over the bodies lying on the ground; these immediately begin to move, writhing as if in agony, and uttering a mournful, dismal sound,
