On November 2nd, Ray, Seligmann, and I went with Mr. Douglas to Somerset, in Albany Pass, Cape York, to visit Mr. Frank Jardine. We reached Somerset early in the afternoon and left at ten next morning. Mr. Jardine is probably the oldest resident in the Straits, and has seen a great deal, but he does not care about the natives, and could tell us very little that we particularly wanted to know. We went prepared to measure and study the Australian natives of the Gudang tribe, of which Macgillivray wrote; but they have all died out, or at all events none now live in their own country, the same remark also applies to neighbouring tribes. We were greatly disappointed, as it was important to determine whether they had any relationship to the islanders. It was very saddening to be continually pulled up in our researches by the oft-repeated cry of “Too late!”

As an illustration of the way in which natives did their best to assist us in our work, I must mention the thoughtfulness of a certain policeman on Thursday Island named Jimmy Matauri, who was a native of Yaraikanna tribe of Cape York. On November 7th, Jimmy sent me four of his fellow-tribesmen who had come to Thursday Island on a shelling boat. We were very glad of this opportunity to measure them, as they filled up an annoying gap in our work, these people being virtually the same as the nearly extinct Gudang, whom we failed to meet at Somerset. Physically they are fairly typical Australians—the six men measured had an average height of 5 feet 4 inches, and they had long, narrow heads, and I should imagine there is extremely little if any Papuan blood in their veins.

As soon as the men were measured, I inquired about their bull-roarers. I led up to the question by referring to the middle upper front tooth which was absent in all of them, and which I knew must have been knocked out during initiation ceremonies. They acknowledged having the bull-roarer which they called umbalako, and promised to make some for me. There was a public holiday the following day as it was the Prince of Wales’ birthday, and nearly all the white residents went for a picnic to Goode Island, where there were some sports for the coloured population. I had intended going to the picnic, but as our Cape York friends were coming again, Seligmann and I remained behind to see them.

In the afternoon they turned up with the promised bull-roarers. These were 5¼ inches in length and painted red, black, and white. There were no sticks as there should have been, so we supplied the men with a broken box-lid, a tomahawk, and a knife, and the omission was soon rectified. Whilst this was being done in an out-building, Sarah, the waitress, brought us out a cup of afternoon tea, and the natives deftly hid the bull-roarers. For a woman to see a bull-roarer would be a terrible sacrilege, and there was evident relief when the unsuspecting Sarah took her departure.

After taking their photographs we had a talk on their customs, and more particularly on their initiation ceremonies. When the boys have “little bit whiskers” they are taken into the bush about the end of the south-east monsoon, and the langa, as the lads are called, are isolated for a variable period lasting from a month to a year, apparently according to the age of each lad. Each langa is looked after by a mawara (his future brother-in-law) who anoints him with bush medicine in the hollow of the thigh (near the head of the femur), in the pits of the groin, the hollows above the collar-bones, the hollows of the temples, and at the back of the knee. This is done to make the boy grow.

During the period of seclusion the langa wears a short kilt; he is not allowed to talk nor play, and has to remain all the time in the tera, which corresponds with the kwod of the islanders.

At the end of the period the real ceremonies are held, in which all the men participate. The langa are painted red, white, and black in a fearsome manner and otherwise decorated.

In the Yampa ceremony the langa sit in front of a screen, which has somewhat of a horse-shoe shape; the men of the tribe are stationed a good way off behind the screen, and quite out of sight of the initiates. A tall post is erected within the inclosure, and a man climbs up this and addresses the people beyond, stating that the langa have been well looked after, and asking for food. The people then throw food to him while he is still up on the post, the food being tied up in palm leaves or in baskets. If the anachena fails to catch one of the bundles, he comes down the pole and another climbs up, and so each take their turn till all the food has been thrown.

The swinging and exhibition of the bull-roarer follows this ceremony, but of course no women or children are allowed to witness this. Finally a front tooth is knocked out, and then the lad is recognised as a man. A year later the okara, or test for endurance, supplemented the earlier ceremony of initiation.

At this stage of our talk Seligmann and I were called to dinner, but our four friends said they would return later, when it was dark, as they wanted to paint themselves up and show me exactly how the bull-roarer was swung before the langa, and which they said no white man had ever seen before.

After dinner Jimmy Matauri came for us, and we went with him to an open spot behind some sheds and houses. There were our four friends, with very little on in the way of clothing, but with their bodies variously lined with whiting which I had previously given them. They swung the bull-roarers first, circling them round their heads, and produced the ordinary buzzing noise. Then they rapidly turned, facing the opposite direction, and at the same time swung the bull-roarers horizontally with a sudden backward and forward movement of the hand, which made them give out a penetrating yelping “Bow-wow!” It was a weird sound, and extremely incongruous in an environment of corrugated iron sheds, and not far from a steam merry-go-round, with its grating machinery, discordant whistles, and monotonous music, blatantly making merry on the occasion of the Prince of Wales’ birthday! The contrasts which greet one constantly in such places as these are often most violent.

The four natives then gave a short exhibition of a dance, which consisted of a slow walk, strongly flexing each leg alternately, and occasionally standing still momentarily, bending the head from one side to the other, the men uttering low grunts all the time.

Next they gave a demonstration of the method used in knocking out an initiate’s front tooth. The subject lies on the ground on his back, with his head resting on the operator’s lap; the latter takes a kangaroo bone in his left hand, and a stone in his right, and inserts the former first on one side and then on the other of the tooth to be extracted, the bone being worked sideways; this is done several times till the tooth is loosened. The tooth is then smartly tapped, and with each tap the name is mentioned of one of the “countries” owned by the lad’s mother, or by her father, or other of her relatives. These are given in order, and the name spoken when the tooth breaks away is the country to which the lad belongs in future. The lad is then given some water with which to rinse his mouth, and he gently lets the gory spittle fall into a leaf water-basket. The old men carefully inspect the form assumed by the clot, and trace some likeness to a natural object, plant, or stone; this will be the ari of the newly made man. So far as I know, this is a previously undescribed method of fixing the territory of an individual, or rather that land over which he has hunting, and root and fruit collecting rights. It is worth noticing that only the lands belonging to the mother’s family were enumerated; that is, a boy inherits from his mother and not from his father. Thus the mother’s land goes to her children, and a father’s to his nephews and nieces. On November 10th the same natives came again for a talk in the afternoon, and we obtained some additional information from them. Tomari, one of the most intelligent of them, has three ari: (1) aru, a crab, which fell to him through blood divination at initiation in the manner just described; (2) untara, diamond fish; (3) alungi, crayfish. The two latter were given to him as the result of dreams. It appears that if an old man dreams of anything at night, that object is the ari of the first person he sees next morning; the idea being that the animal, or whatever appears in the dream, is the spirit of the first person met with on awakening. Tomari’s father was a carpet-snake, his mother an oyster, and his wife a particular kind of fruit. The ari is very similar to the manitu or okki of certain North American tribes, or to the “personal totem,” as Dr. J. G. Frazer terms it in his valuable little book on Totemism.

Women obtain their ari in the same manner as men. If it was true, as I was told, that men and women may not marry into the same ari in their own place, but may do so when away from home, its sanctity is local rather than personal. A wife must be taken from another “country,” as all belonging to the same place are brothers and sisters; which indicates that there is a territorial idea in kinship and in the consequent marriage restrictions.