Every Australian native, so far as is known, has in the normal condition of the tribe to pass through certain ceremonies of initiation before he is admitted to the secrets of the tribe, and is regarded as a fully developed member of it. These ceremonies vary both in their nature and number to a very large extent in different tribes. Those of the eastern and south-eastern coastal districts are entirely different from those of the central tribes, amongst whom they are more elaborate and spread over a long series of years, the first taking place at about the age of ten or twelve, whilst the final and most impressive one is not passed through until probably the native has reached the age of at least twenty-five, or it may be thirty. In the Arunta and Ilpirra tribes the ceremonies are four in number :—

1. (1) Painting and throwing the boy up in the air.

2. (2) Circumcision or Lartna.

3. (3) Subincision or Ariltha.

4. (4) The Engwura or fire ceremony.

The times at which these take place and the details of the ceremonies vary to a certain extent in various parts of the tribes, which, it must be remembered, occupy an area of country stretching from Charlotte Waters in the south to at least 100 miles north of Alice Springs, that is over an area measuring 300 miles north and south by at least 100 miles east and west, and comprising in the south a wide extent of upland, stony plains and sand hills, and in the north a succession of ranges running east and west, and reaching an elevation of 5,000 feet.