22 



which case the fossiliferous marine beds above will fall into the 

 Upper Marine Group of our Permo-Carboniferous System. 



Ethnology. — Mr. C. H. Roberts informs me that the neigh- 

 bourliood of the Sassafras was at one time a great refuge ground 

 for those aborigines who had offended against their own unwritten 

 laws, especially those referring to the connubial state. The main 

 offence was that of lubra stealing, great enmity then existing 

 between the Braidwood blacks and their neighbours the Maneroo 

 tribe.* One of their customs appears to have been this : — Should 

 the offending party be caught by the pursuing tribe, when 

 travelling in company with the kidnapped gin, the guilty pair 

 were simply brought back to their place of departure, and the male 

 was then forced to undergo the ordeal of spear-throwing, f This 

 consisted in having one hundred spears cast at him when stationary, 

 by five men as fast as possible, when the dexterity displayed by the 

 culprit in avoiding them is said to have been marvellous. Should 

 the man succeed in escaping without fatal injury, the matter was 

 considered as settled, honour satisfied, and the woman was 

 allowed to remain with him as his wife. On the other hand, 

 should the runaways be found cohabiting at the haven of i-efuge, 

 dire vengeance was at once administered, the man killed, and his 

 body disposed of in tlie manner we found the object of our 

 search at the Sassafras. Mr. Roberts states that from some 

 superstitious custom the legs were severed at the knee, but in 

 this particular case it had not been done. Instead, the femora 

 had been cleanly divided high up on the body of the bones, and 

 then the legs doubled up on the trunk, following a jyost mortem 

 method of preparation customary with several ti'ibes of the 

 aborigines. The right femur, however, had been divided by a 

 direct oblique clean cut about the commencement of the body, 

 and the left tibia had been smashed by a direct heavy blow with 

 a blunt instrument just above the lower end of the body of the 

 bone, and the injury presents the appearance of having been 

 done previous to death. 



We hoped to have found these remains in the mummified state, 

 the condition in which they were seen by Mr. Roberts some years 

 ago, but the lapse of time, notwithstanding protection from the 

 elements, had almost completely destroyed the dried sinews. 

 Nevertheless, the whole of the upper part of the trunk is osteo- 

 logically entire, held together by portions of the soft tissues. 

 The body was deposited in a small recess in the Hawkesbury 

 Sandstone escarpment at the Round Hill, about six miles north 



*The sea-board of this part of N. S. Wales was occupied, according to 

 Dr. J. Fraser, B.A., by the Murring tribe. {Journ. R. Soc. N. S. Wales, 

 18S2, xvi., p. 206, note.) 



fA siiniliir custom appears to exist in a more or less modified form in 

 several tribes, Mr. Froggatt mentions it as practised by the Kimberley 

 blacks. {Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, 1888, iii. (2), p. G53.) 



