I have traversed its scrubs, mountains and swamps fo(u)r several times, and I observed little in it of living creatures excepting a few wallaby, snakes, leeches, mosquitoes and flies.
[3] Given the relative scarcity of food resources to sustain incomers, the gathering Bidawal conducted their variation of the ceremony rapidly.
On their arrival, the presiding elders would call out the prominent landscape features of each tribe as they settled variously on grounds cleared for their respective camps.
[5] At around midday, the boys would begin to be decked out by their mothers and sisters with the body paint and feathered headdress proper to each tribe's customs, and, by late afternoon, would be led to sit on bark or leave-green boughs, heads bent down, in a cleared space some distance from the ceremonial ground proper, each mother marking the spot with her yamstick, as songs were droned.
[6] The day after, a body of men trail out to a site some 300–400 metres away, clear it and strew the ground of the resulting horseshoe arena with foliage.
Throughout the night, the women, followed by the men, circle round the enclosure singing a tune no one can understand, while beating the deddelun, the purpose being to lull the boys into a drowsy sleep.
The elders and medicine men then get the boys to sit upright, and they are adorned with the tribal regalia of manhood, brow-band, a girdle round the waist, an apron and the like, while their heads were covered with an animal skin to stop them from seeing anything.