Here the death is vicarious.  Another goes through the simulated death that the initiated boy may have new life.  But often the mimicry is practised on the boys themselves.  Thus in West Ceram[32] boys at puberty are admitted to the Kakian association.  The boys are taken blindfold, followed by their relations, to an oblong wooden shed under the darkest trees in the depths of the forest.  When all are assembled the high priest calls aloud on the devils, and immediately a hideous uproar is heard from the shed.  It is really made by men in the shed with bamboo trumpets, but the women and children think it is the devils.  Then the priest enters the shed with the boys, one at a time.  A dull thud of chopping is heard, a fearful cry rings out, and a sword dripping with blood is thrust out through the roof.  This is the token that the boy’s head has been cut off, and that the devil has taken him away to the other world, whence he will return born again.  In a day or two the men who act as sponsors to the boys return daubed with mud, and in a half-fainting state like messengers from another world.  They bring the good news that the devil has restored the boys to life.  The boys themselves appear, but when they return they totter as they walk; they go into the house backwards.  If food is given them they upset the plate.  They sit dumb and only make signs.  The sponsors have to teach them the simplest daily acts as though they were new-born children.  At the end of twenty to thirty days, during which their mothers and sisters may not comb their hair, the high priest takes them to a lonely place in the forest and cuts off a lock of hair from the crown of each of their heads.  At the close of these rites the boys are men and may marry.

Sometimes the new birth is not simulated but merely suggested.  A new name is given, a new language taught, a new dress worn, new dances are danced.  Almost always it is accompanied by moral teaching.  Thus in the Kakian ceremony already described the boys have to sit in a row cross-legged, without moving a muscle, with their hands stretched out.  The chief takes a trumpet, and placing the mouth of it on the hand of each lad, he speaks through it in strange tones, imitating the voice of spirits.  He warns the boys on pain of death to observe the rules of the society, and never to reveal what they have seen in the Kakian house.  The priests also instruct the boys on their duty to their blood relations, and teach them the secrets of the tribe.

Sometimes it is not clear whether the new birth is merely suggested or represented in pantomime.  Thus among the Binbinga of North Australia it is generally believed that at initiation a monstrous being called Katajalina, like the Kronos of the Greeks, swallows the boys and brings them up again initiated; but whether there is or is not a dromenon or rite of swallowing we are not told.