A man—perhaps two but rarely more than one—is seized suddenly in camp, apparently against his will, and loosely bound about the hands and neck with native-made string. He is then led away into the bush some distance from the main camp where the party cannot be seen by women or the uninitiated. That night the women build a large mound of earth two or three feet high, upon which they light a fire which is kept burning, and around which they sit quietly. During the evening after the men have been absent sufficiently long to complete their decorations they can be heard singing vigorously in the distance “Yea ka ka ya wo, Yea ka ka ya wo,” upon hearing which the women at once jump up and while running in circles round the fire take up and repeat the refrain. This singing and dancing around the fire is kept up at intervals throughout the night for a week or more, during which time the women have little or no sleep.
When the man who is to be admitted to the status of Wilyaru is taken to the selected spot he is painted by the old Wilyaru men with a thick coating of fat and charcoal from the navel upwards, and a number of the men attending the ceremony are similarly decorated. Each man is freshly painted every day, and the singing goes on all night long as no one is supposed to go to sleep. The novice
640:1 The Native Tribes of South Australia. Adelaide, 1879, pp. 253–307.