I9I0.] MATHEWS— AUSTRALIAN BURIAL CUSTOMS. 301' 



As regards the purpose of articles such as that now ilhistrated, 

 it is hard to obtain full particulai-s, because they are not used by 

 the remnants of the tribes now living on the Darling River. It is 

 not likely that they have been worn on the head, like the " widows' 

 caps " described by me last year,- because the opening in some of 

 them is too small to fit any adult skull, whilst others are too large 

 and heavy. The great depth of the hollow — 13 inches in my speci- 

 men — would be needless as a receptable for the head ; and there are 

 no impressions of a net on the inner wall similar to those found on 

 " widows' caps." An old black fellow whom the white people called 

 " Jimmy," a head man of the Ngunnhalgu tribe, who resided most 

 of his later years at Alarra Station, on the Darling, and who died 

 about ten years ago, said the articles with the deep cavities were not 

 worn on the head, but were laid upon the graves of old men and 

 women of tribal importance, in the same way that the kopai balls 

 were deposited.^ 



]\Ir. J. E. Suttor writes me as follows : 



In 1880, while mustering cattle on the back part of Curranyalpa run, I 

 came across two old black men and a woman camped at a waterhole. They 

 had shifted out from the Darling river to hunt opossums for the skins. The 

 old woman was lying in the camp very sick. A few days later the two 

 black fellows passed my camp, which was about five miles from their own, 

 and told me the old woman had died. Going that way a copule of days 

 afterwards I found the grave on a pine ridge close by the camp I had pre- 

 viously seen, and upon it were lying two hollowed kopai articles somewhat 

 resembling widows' caps. At the place where the camp fire had been was a 

 piece of bark, with the remains of kopai plaster upon it, together with some 

 lumps of kopai, burnt and ready to break up, if more had been required. 



The woman's husband and the other man, who was probably a 

 relative, had each left a token of their sorrow upon the grave before 

 they went away. 



It is well known that human skulls were used as water vessels by 

 the aborigines in several parts of Australia. Mr. E. J. Eyre saw 

 some drinking cups of this sort, and gives an illustration of one.* 

 The tribes referred to by Mr. Eyre adjoined the Darling River 



" Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc, Vol 48, pp. 316-318, Figs. 5 and 6. 

 ^ Op. cit., pp. 313-315, Figs. I to 4. 



*Journs. Expeds. Discov. Cent. Aust. (London, 18 — ), Vol. 2, pp. 310, 

 316 and 511, plate IV., fig. 20. 



