238 



NOTES ON AN ABORIGINAL GRAVE IN THE 

 DARLING RIVER DISTRICT, N.S.W. 



By Graham Officer, B.Sc. 



(Communicated by R. Etheridye, Junr.) 



(Plate xiii.) 



Certain objects of aboriginal manufacture, found over a large 

 area of the Western Division of N.S. Wales, have hitherto been 

 somewhat of a puzzle to science, precise information about them 

 being difficult to obtain. The only published matter on the 

 subject is contained in a paper by Mr. W. R. Harper,"^ but to which 

 at the time of writing I have not access. 



During two and one-half years' residence on Kallara Station, 

 betw^een Bourke and Wilcannia, on the Darling River, I have 

 collected a number of these objects, which may be divided into 

 two main groups : — 



(A) Those of the first type are the most commonly occurring, 

 and are those which Mr. Harper has already described. The 

 material of which they are made is sometimes stone, such as 

 quartzite. In some cases a conveniently shaped pebble has been 

 used, and I have a specimen which makes me think they were 

 sometimes dressed out of a rough oblong block. But perhaps the 

 most frequently occurring specimens have been made of kopi, an 

 earthy gypsum which is first burnt and then mixed to form a 

 cement with sand and water, moulded to the required shape, and 

 afterwards evidently finished by scraping. 



* Harper (W. K ) — "A Description of certain Objects of unknown Signifi- 

 cance, formerly used by some New South Wales Tribes." Proc. Linn. Soc. 

 N.S. Wales, 1898, xxiii. p. 420. 



