It lasts a month, involves much severe training and power of endurance, and includes admirable moral instruction.
Haddon remarks that it formed "a very good discipline," and adds, "it is not easy to conceive of a more effectual means for a rapid training." Among the aborigines of Victoria, Australia, the initiatory ceremonies, as described by R.H.Mathews ("Some Initiation Ceremonies," _Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_, 1905, Heft 6), last for seven months, and constitute an admirable discipline.

The boys are taken away by the elders of the tribe, subjected to many trials of patience and endurance of pain and discomfort, sometimes involving even the swallowing of urine and excrement, brought into contact with strange tribes, taught the laws and folk-lore, and at the end meetings are held at which betrothals are arranged.
Among the northern tribes of Central Australia the initiation ceremonies involve circumcision and urethral subincision, as well as hard manual labor and hardships.

The initiation of girls into womanhood is accompanied by cutting open of the vagina.

These ceremonies have been described by Spencer and Gillen (_Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, Ch.

XI).