A. W. Howitt, in MS. Notes on Australian Pictographs, contributes the following:
Among the most interesting of the pictorial markings used by the aborigines are those which are made in connection with the ceremonies of initiation. I now take as an instance the Murring tribe of the southern coast of New South Wales, whose ceremonies I have described elsewhere. The humming instrument, which is known in England as a child’s toy called the bull roarer, has a sacred character with all the Australian tribes. The Murring call it Mŭdji, and the loud roaring sound made when it is swung around at the end of a cord is considered to be the voice of Daramūlŭn, the great supernatural being by whom, according to their tradition, these ceremonies were first instituted.
On this instrument there are marked two notches, one at each end, representing the gap left in the upper jaw of the novice after his teeth have been knocked out during the rites; there is also figured on it the rude representations of Daramūlŭn.
A similar rude outline of a man in the attitude of the magic dance, being also Daramūlŭn, is cut by the old men (wizards) at the ceremonies, upon the bark of a tree at the spot where one of them knocks out the tooth of the novice. This pictograph is then carefully cut out and obliterated after the ceremonies are over.
At a subsequent stage of the proceedings a similar figure is molded on the ground in clay, and is surrounded by the native weapons which Daramūlŭn is said to have invented. This figure, after having been exhibited to the novice, is also destroyed, and they are strictly forbidden under pain of death to make them known in any manner to “women or children;” that is to say, to the uninitiated.
The Mŭdji is not destroyed, but is carefully and secretly preserved by the principal headman who had caused the ceremonies to be held.
The ceremonies of the Wirajuri tribe in New South Wales are substantially the same as those of the Murring, although the tribes are several hundred miles apart. The details, however, differ in some respects.
For instance, at one part of the ceremonies certain carvings are made upon the tree adjoining the place of the ceremonies and upon the ground, as follows:
(1) A piece of bark is stripped off the tree from the branches spirally down the bole to the ground. This represents the path along which Daramūlŭn is supposed to descend from the sky to the place where the initiation is held.