The Bora.
Excerpt from the accompanying article on the Bora published in the Australian Town and Country Journal 31 December 1898:
The aboriginal religion arose from the demand for regulated domestic and social relations, to enable him to make life as well worth living as his circumstances would permit laws of some sort were necessary, and to enable them to obtain general recognition and to have permanent effect it was also necessary that they should take the form of religious observances.
The very difficult question of the relations between the sexes was naturally something that called for stringent laws, and there can be no doubt that the laws devised did really secure a fairly high degree of morality. These laws imposed restraint on the young men, and then took every means that were possible to impress upon him the dignity of manhood. He could only attain to the legal status of manhood by being initiated, and the "Bora" or initiation ceremony was designed to test him, and usher him into his new estate with due dignity and circumstance. The cloak of mystery was essential to create the awe which was necessary for the impressiveness of the ceremonies, and, therefore, sedulous care was exercised to prevent outsiders becoming acquainted with the proceedings.
Our illustration of blacks at a "Bora" has, therefore, unique value, being from, an actual photograph which, owing to exceptional circumstances, Mr. C. H. Kerry, the well-known photographer, of George-street, Sydney, was enabled to make.
Source: The Bora (1898, December 31). Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1907), p. 20.
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