368 



UKCOK'DS OF TIIH ATSTliALIAN MUSEUM. 



ornanieuts) which in certain cHstricts may be absolutely distinctive 

 of the period of mourning may in other areas have no such signi- 

 ticatory importance whatever. 



2. On the Pennefather River, wliich is fairly t3'pical of the 

 procedures usually followed in tlie upper portions of Cape York 

 Peninsula, differences in the burial ceremonies vary much with 

 the age and sex of the individual concerned. Old men and 

 women, as well as young women, are buried within a day or two 

 after decease in the neighbour"hood of the camping-ground, and 

 the camp shifted. Children are usually put out of sight directly 

 after death, though sometimes they may be carried about, wrapped 

 up in bark, until they get dried, before being stowed away rather 

 than buried, among the roots of a tree, in a cave, etc, The father 

 of the child does not visibly appear to be much concerned over 

 its death, though the mother takes it to heart, and will put on 

 mourning in the form of shell necklaces and chest ornaments- 

 which a})pear to be used only in the case of deaths of infants and 

 children : the necklaces are placed either around the neck or from 

 one shoulder across to be opposite armpit, and are made of Solen, 

 Oliva and Columbella shells, while the special chest ornaments are 

 manufactured from the pearl shell, or Mallens. When young men 

 die the body is at once put into a sheet of bark, bound rounrl and 

 round, and slung to a pole supported by two forks,^' but in the 

 neighbourhood of Margaret Bay, the body may be slung up without 

 any Ijark covering except a dilly-bag or two o^ser the head (PI. 

 Ix viii., fig. 1 ). Until such time as the corpse becomes dried, the num- 

 ber of months depending upon the season, etc., there is a singing 

 and stamping performance taking place over it morning and 

 evening. The mourners both male and female cover themselves 

 completely with charcoal, and with beeswax stick on their fore- 

 lock anything of a red colour, usually either a feather of the 

 Blue Mountain Paroquet, or (the women^ a flower of Erythriua 

 vespertilio : the women in addition tie a particular kind of fibre- 

 string (Bull. 2 — Sect. 15) round the belly and ai'ms, this string 

 being often coloured red, and on the Peninsula Coast-line, cer- 

 tainly in the neiglibourbood of Pennefather River and Margaret 

 Bay, may wear a special kind of cap manufactured on the same 

 pattern as the local dilly-bag ; it is known as a Nggara 

 (NGG)." While the men sit or stand around the slung corpse, 



1^ Tliese two forked uprights often give tlie only clue to the charred remains 

 scattered around. 



" Capital letters expressed in this manner were used by Dr. Roth through- 

 out the former Bulletins to indicate nanu^s of the various tribes referred 

 to. Thus NG-G means the Nggerikudi Tribe of the Pennefather and 

 Batavia Rivei-s. See Bull. 3, p. 3 — Editor. 



