BY R. ETHERIDGE, JUNR. 337 



the nearest female relative, other than the widow, assumed one, 

 according to Mr. J. Bonney.* I have only met with one recorded 

 instance of a cap being worn by a man. Mr. J Hawdonf during 

 a "Journey from N.S. Wales to Adelaide in 1838" met with a 

 man in the neighbourhood of the Goulburn River, in Victoria, 

 whose "head was plastered with a coat of white clay, which is 

 the mode in which these tribes wear mourning for their dead." 



The preparation of the head to receive the cap appears to have 

 been practically the same throughout the tribes wearing it. 

 Angas informs| us that along the Murray the head to be covered 

 is first shaven and then enclosed in a net; Bonney, referring^ to 

 the Darling Aborigines, says, " fixed to the head by the hair and 

 a small net, which is generally laid over the head before the cake 

 is plastered on," and at Lake Bonney, or Nookamka, on the 

 Murray River, Hawdon|| observed a "network made of twine." 

 Buhner, II again, says of certain of the Murray Tribes, " In order 

 to get the cap properly fitted to the head the woman had all her 

 hair cut off, a net was put over the head, which enabled her to 

 get the cap off easily." On the other hand, in certain Victorian 

 tribes, but not specially named, singeing appears to have been 

 resorted to, for Mr. W. Stanbridge remarks,** "Widows in some 

 instances have the hair first cut off with a little fire stick close to 

 the head, by the doctor or priest, before assuming the badge of 

 woe." 



Whether or no the actual operation of covering the head was 

 always performed on her own head by the widow herself seems 



* Journ. Anthrop. Inst., 18S4, xiii. p. 135. 



t Proc. R. Geogr. Soc. Austr. (N.S.W. Br.), 1891, v. No. 2, p. 36. 



+ 8. Australia Illustrated, 1846, Expl. pi. 30, f. 15. 



§ Journ. Anthrop. Inst., 1884, xiii. p. 135. 



I! Loc. dt. p. 36. 



IT Journ. R. Geogr. Soc. Austr. (Vict. Br.). 1888, v. Pt. 1, p. 23. 



**Trans. Eth. Soc, 1861, i. p. 298; Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, 1878, i. 

 p. 111. 



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