246 Mystical and Ceremonial Avoidance
in far distant countries. Whether there was anything similar among the aboriginal American tribes or nations I have been unable to ascertain.
The avoidance-of-contact idea is found in connection with the following persons :
1. Boys on initiation to manhood.
2. Brides.
3. Persons initiated into secret societies.
4. Chiefs.
5. Dancers.
6. Sacred inanimate objects.
No. I. Initiation to Manhood.
In Australia the practice existed among the initiation rites of boys to manhood. (Frobenius, The Childhood of Man, quoting Collins.) ^ One of the necessary ceremonies was the removal of a tooth from the youth, which tooth was afterwards worn as an ornament. The ceremony of removal, which was effected by a sharp blow on a chisel, was performed whilst the youth was not in direct contact with the ground. One of the men of the tribe knelt down, and the youth sat on his shoulders holding on tightly while the percussion was done, and until the tooth was at last broken off. Thereafter the patient added the name of his bearer to his own. This was witnessed in the early days at Port Jackson, but in other parts of the continent it appears that the youth was simply laid on his back on the ground and the tooth knocked out, a much quicker and surer method.
Another ceremony was the introduction of the youths to the presumed chiefs of the initiation rites. Two men sat on tree stumps, each with another seated on his shoulders.
^W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North-Wesi-Central Queensland Aborigines, 170: Sir B. Spencer, F. I. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia, 236.
