333 



C ontrihutions from the Australian Museum. 



THE "WIDOW'S CAP" OF THE AUSTRALIAN 



ABORIGINES. 



By R. Etheridge, Junr., Curator of the Australian Museum. 



(Plates xxvi.-xxxi.) 



By no means one of the least interesting of the Mortuary- 

 Customs of the Australian Aborigines is the addition of white or 

 black pigment to some part of the person of the mourner. One 

 or other of these colours, but black only to a limited extent, was, 

 and even is still in the more remote parts of the Continent 

 applied either to the head, face, beard, chest or arms alone, or to 

 a combination of any two or more of them. The most conspicuous 

 of all is, without doubt, the head-covering known as the "Widow's 

 Cap." " Mourning," says the Rev. J. Bulmer,* of the Aboriginal 

 Mission Station at Lake Tyers, Gippsland, is, amongst the tribes 

 of the Murray River, "a very laborious affair for the widows, as 

 they had to malce themselves caps of plaster for a long time after 

 the death." 



One of the first, if not actually tlie first, travellers to notice 

 these peculiar coverings was Surveyor-General Mitchell during 

 his " Second Expedition into the Interior of Eastern Australia" 

 in 1835, on graves near Fort Bourke, Darling River, accompanied 

 by white lenticular balls. He informsf us that beside the latter 

 " were in some cases casts also in lime or gypsum of the upper 

 part of the head, which had evidently been worn on a head where 



* Journ. R. (ieogr. Soc. Australasia (Vict. Branch), 1888, v., Pt. 1, p. 22. 

 t Three Expeds. Int. E. Australia, 1838, i. p. 252, figs. 



