They stopped in front of the first boy, called him to rise by a new name; as he did so all the men clapped their thighs and shouted 'Wah! wah! wah!' Then an old wirreenun gave him a small white gubberah, which he was bidden to keep concealed for ever from the uninitiated and the women, and he must be ready to produce it whenever called upon to do so.

The result of failure would be fatal to him.

With the loss of the stone his life spirit would be weakened, and the strength of the Boorah spirit, with which he was now endowed, be used against him instead of for him, as would be the case as long as he kept the stone.
These stones seem somewhat in the way of 'Baetyli' of pagan antiquity, which were of round form; they were supposed to be animated, by means of magical incantations, with a portion of the Deity; they were consulted on occasions of great and pressing emergency as a kind of divine oracle, and were suspended either round the neck or some other part of the body.
As each boy received his stone another loud chorus of 'Wah! wah! wah!' went up from that crowd, making the scrub ring with the sound.
Some of those, of whose tribe it was the custom--it is not invariably so--now had a front tooth knocked off; this done a wirreenun chanted to the boy, who had been blindfolded and almost deafened by the whirring of Gayandi.
One chant was as follows:-- Now you can meet the Boorah spirit, Now will he harm you not.
He will know his spirit is in you.
For this is the sign, A front tooth gone.
That is his sign, He will know you by it.
Some of the wirreenuns buried these teeth by the Boorah fire, others carefully wrapped them up to keep as charms, or to send to other tribes, each according to the individual custom of his tribe.
This all over, once more there was a marching and chanting round the fire, then the boys were taken away and given food for the first time since they left their mothers.
No wonder that the 'supernatural' was mixed up with their impressions of the Boorah: fasting nourishes hallucinations.

While the boys were eating, they could hear in the distance other chants, and knew that ceremonies were going on to which they were not yet to be admitted, there being degrees of initiation.
On the fourth day the men took them about ten miles, and camped with them where they could hear faintly in the distance the noise of the main camp; so they knew they were near the place chosen for the Durramunga, or Little Boorah.
Just before dawn next morning each Munthdeegun took his Boorahbayyi, or partially initiated one, to the Durramunga.

There was a Boorah ring, but instead of earth grass was heaped all round it.