Message-sticks can be sent by any one. The marks placed on the sticks are an aid to memory. The numbers 1 and 2 in Fig. 44 represent a message-stick sent to inform the Kongait tribe that the Tongaranka intended holding an initiation ceremony, and inviting their attendance. The notches on No. 1 have the following explanation, counting from the top:—
1. Jumba = make young men.
2. Yantoru = sticks for knocking out teeth.
3. Purtali = small bull-roarer.
4. Bungumbelli = large bull-roarer.
5. Not explained.
6. (Large notch) Tallyera = marking with red ochre.
On No. 2 the notches refer to different localities from which the blacks are to come to Yancannia, which is the larger notch.
Nos. 3 and 4 represent another Tongaranka stick, from the son of the Headman to a man at Tarella. The message was to tell him that the sender, his brothers, and two old men were at a certain water-hole, and wished him to bring his son to be initiated, as there were two other boys ready for the ceremony. In 3 the large notch is the recipient of the message, and the three smaller ones his son and the other boys. The group of three notches in No. 4 represent the sender of the stick and his two brothers, while the two small cuts are the old men.
No. 5 represents a message-stick sent by a man of the Tongaranka tribe, inviting two of his friends at a distance to come and see him, as his wife was ill and could not travel. The lower notch represents the sender, and the two others the men invited.
This message-stick is made of part of a small branch of a tree, and is wrapped round with a few strands of a man's kilt, with which article of man's attire the boy is invested after initiation. The whole is tied up in about two feet of the cord made of twisted opossum fur, which the novice wears for a time, after his initiation, as evidence of his having been made a "young man."[1]
- ↑ J. W. Boultbee.
