The Ceremony Of Tattooing Is Practised Among The Tribes Of The Murray And Its Neighbourhood With Great Circumstantial Variety.

Some are tattooed all over the back or breast in rows, some only one half of each or of one, some are only dotted, others have rings or semicircles round the upper part of the arms and some are tattooed on the belly, etc.

Many tribes I have met with in different parts of Australia, have no tattooing at all, others are marked on the breast by singular looking scars, occupying a space of six or eight inches each way upon the chest, these are called "renditch" in the Murray dialect, and are made by fire; but I have never been able to obtain any satisfactory information respecting them. These scars are confined to particular tribes whom I have only met with occasionally, and for a period which did not allow me the opportunity of making much inquiry into their origin.

At Encounter Bay, instead of plucking out the hair of the pubes, the incipient beard is pulled out by the roots, and the youth, as at the Murray, is smeared from head to foot with red ochre and grease.

Among the females the only ceremony of importance that I am aware of is that of tattooing the back, a long and very painful operation. [Note 79 at end of para.] The method of performing the operation is as follows: the person whose back is to be tattooed is taken out early in the morning and squatted on the ground with her back towards the operator (always a male), and her head bent down between the knees of a strong old woman who is sitting on the ground for that purpose; the back is thus presented in the best position to the operator, and the girl, as long as her head is kept firmly in its position, cannot possibly arise until all is over. The man who performs the ceremony then commences by taking hold of a fold of the flesh on the girl's right side, just above the breech, with his left hand, whilst with his right he holds a piece of flint or shell, and cuts perpendicular gashes an inch long, three-sixteenths of an inch deep, and about half an inch apart, in horizontal lines from right to left quite across the back, the rows being half an inch or three-quarters distant from each other.

[Note 79: Hoc plerumque menstruis jam primum venientibus factum est: saepe autem puellis propter timorem statum suam celantibus, aut aliqua alia ex causa, opus quod tempore menstruali fieri prorsus necessarium est, in proxima differtur.]

This is carried up the whole way from where he commences to the shoulders, and when freshly done, presents one of the most dreadful spectacles imaginable, the blood gushes out in torrents, and though frequently wiped away with grass by some of the women present, is scarcely removed before the crimson stream flows as profusely as ever. During the time of the ceremony the mother and other female relations lament and mourn, whilst they lacerate their bodies with shells.

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