with interest, prepared for with solemnity, and endured with a self-devotion bordering on the heroic. . . . It is at this period that the young men and young women 'see visions and dream dreams,' and fortune or misfortune is predicted from the guardian spirit chosen during this, to them, religious ordeal. The hallucinations of the mind are taken for divine inspiration. The effect is deeply felt and strongly impressed on the mind; too deeply, indeed, ever to be obliterated in after life." It appears that they always in after life trust to, and meditate on, the guardian spirit whom they have chosen at this critical moment; but that "the name is never uttered, and every circumstance connected with its selection, and the devotion paid to it, are most studiously and professedly concealed, even from their nearest friends" (A. R., vol. i. pp. 149, 150). Mystery is certainly pushed to its highest point, when the name of the spirit chosen at puberty, and the very circumstances of the choice, are preserved as an inviolable secret within the breast of the devotee.
New South Wales is distinguished by a ceremony which, though far less severe than that of the Mandans, is nevertheless sufficiently painful. "Between the ages of eight and sixteen the males and females undergo the operation which they term Gnanoong; viz., that of having the septum of the nose bored to receive a bone or reed. . . . Between the same years, also, the males receive the qualifications which are given to them by losing one front tooth." The loss of a tooth is not in itself a very serious matter, but the intention of the extraction being religious, the natives contrive to get rid of it in the most barbarous mode. The final event is led up to by a series of performances of a more or less emblematic nature. One of them, for instance, is supposed to give power over the dog; another refers to the hunting of the kangaroo. There is the usual mystery about some part of the proceedings. When the boys were being arranged for the removal of the tooth "the author [Collins] was not permitted to witness this part of the business, about which they appeared to observe a greater degree of mystery and preparation than he had noticed in either of the preceding ceremonies." After this, some of the performers in the rite went through a number of extraordinary motions,
