CEREMONIES AND SUPERSTITIONS--FORMS OF BURIAL--MOURNING CUSTOMS--RELIGIOUS
IDEAS--EMPIRICS, ETC.


The ceremonies and superstitions of the natives are both numerous and
involved in much obscurity; indeed it is very questionable if any of them
are understood even by themselves. Almost all the tribes impose
initiatory rites upon the young, through which they must pass from one
stage of life to another, until admitted to the privileges and rights of
manhood. These observances differ greatly in different parts of the
continent, independently of local or distinctive variations indicative of
the tribe to which a native may belong.

Thus at the Gulf of Carpentaria, the rite of circumcision is performed;
at Swan River, King George's Sound, and nearly three hundred miles to the
eastward of the latter place, no such rite exists. Round the head of the
Great Australian Bight, and throughout the Port Lincoln Peninsula, not
only is this rite performed, but a still more extraordinary one conjoined
with it. [Note 78: "Finditur usque ad urethram a parte inferaa penis."]
Descending the east side of Spencer's and St. Vincent's Gulf, and
around the district of Adelaide, the simple rite of circumcision is
retained. Proceeding but a little farther to the banks of the Murray, and
its neighbourhood, no such ceremony exists, nor have I ever heard of its
having been observed any where on the southeastern, or eastern parts of
the continent.

So also with respect to tattooing; in one part of the continent it is
adopted, in another it is rejected; when it is practised, there are many
varieties in the form, number, or arrangement of the scars,
distinguishing the different tribes, so that one stranger meeting with