CHAPTER V.
CEREMONIES AND SUPERSTITIONS--FORMS OF BURIAL--MOURNING CUSTOMS--RELIGIOUS IDEAS--EMPIRICS, ETC.
The ceremonies and superstitions of the natives are both numerous and involved in much obscurity; indeed it is very questionable if any of them are understood even by themselves.

Almost all the tribes impose initiatory rites upon the young, through which they must pass from one stage of life to another, until admitted to the privileges and rights of manhood.

These observances differ greatly in different parts of the continent, independently of local or distinctive variations indicative of the tribe to which a native may belong.
Thus at the Gulf of Carpentaria, the rite of circumcision is performed; at Swan River, King George's Sound, and nearly three hundred miles to the eastward of the latter place, no such rite exists.

Round the head of the Great Australian Bight, and throughout the Port Lincoln Peninsula, not only is this rite performed, but a still more extraordinary one conjoined with it.

[Note 78: "Finditur usque ad urethram a parte inferaa penis."] Descending the east side of Spencer's and St.Vincent's Gulf, and around the district of Adelaide, the simple rite of circumcision is retained.