the purpose of festivity or war, or to barter and exchange
such food, clothing, implements, weapons, or other commodities as they
respectively possess; or to assist in the initiatory ceremonies by which
young persons enter into the different grades of distinction amongst
them. The manner and formalities of meeting depend upon the cause for
which they assemble. If the tribes have been long apart, many deaths may
have occurred in the interim; and as the natives do not often admit that
the young or the strong can die from natural causes, they ascribe the
event to the agency of sorcery, employed by individuals of neighbouring
tribes. This must of course be expiated in some way when they meet, but
the satisfaction required is regulated by the desire of the injured tribe
to preserve amicable relations with the other, or the reverse.

The following is an account of a meeting which I witnessed, between the
natives of Moorunde (comprising portions of several of the neighbouring
tribes) and the Nar-wij-jerook, or Lake Bonney tribe, accompanied also by
many of their friends. This meeting had been pre-arranged, as meetings of
large bodies of natives never take place accidentally, for even when a
distant tribe approaches the territory of another unexpectedly,
messengers are always sent on in advance, to give the necessary warning.
The object of the meeting in question was to perform the initiatory
ceremonies upon a number of young men belonging to both of the tribes. In
the Murray district, when one tribe desires another to come from a
distance to perform these ceremonies, young men are sent off with
messages of invitation, carrying with them as their credentials, long
narrow news, made of string manufactured from the rush. These nets are
left with the tribe they are sent to, and brought back again when the
invitation is responded to.

Notice having been given on the previous evening to the Moorunde natives
of the approach of the Nar-wij-jerook tribe, they assembled at an early
hour after sunrise, in as clear and open a place as they could find. Here
they sat down in a long row to await the coming of their friends. The men
were painted, and carried their weapons, as if for war. The women and
children were in detached groups, a little behind them, or on one side,
whilst the young men, on whom the ceremonies were to be performed, sat
shivering with cold and apprehension in a row to the rear of the men,
perfectly naked, smeared over fr