•^70 RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN AIUSKUM. 



hair grow.''' But dui'ing all this loss of speech, the te-itima^ 

 when done with the eating of the human ilesh, has gradually 

 discovered the niurdei'er who doomed the deceased, and b}' the 

 time that he is convinced of the identity, he finds himself in the 

 centre of a gronp of old men bending towards him with their 

 faces to the ground : speech returning, he commences with a 

 guttural, then a babble, and so gradually expresses himself more 

 and more distinctly when he gives his hearers tlie name of the 

 guilty party. He subsequently makes an ombo, or death-charm, 

 ill the form of three or four bone-needles'" splintered from the 

 fibula which he has been carrying with him. AV'ith this ombo 

 the deceased is subsequently avenged on the murderer, either at 

 the hands of the victim's sister's son as alreafly mentioned, or 

 should a convenient opportunity present itself, by the victim's 

 mother's-father's-brother's sun. Should the ombo fail to take 

 immediate effect the accused may liave to stand the ordeal of 

 having spears thrown at him,^" and this may lead to general 

 fighting and trouble. 



3. Down the Lower Gulf Coast, <'.//., on the Lower Mitchell, 

 Nassau, and 8taaten Rivers, very little reliable information is 

 forthcoming concerning procedures, relative to the disposal of the 

 flead. In large measure this is due to the natives being still in 

 their pristine condition, and frightened of strangers, European 

 settlements few and far between, and no interpreters available. 

 As far as my investigations led me, however, I was satisfied that 

 with one or two variations, the fuiieral obsequies are run generally 

 speaking,on the same lines as at the Pennefatlier River. One such 

 variation is tliat during tlie period of discovering the individual 

 guilty of killing the deceased, tlie nearer relatives in place of losing 

 their powers of speech, have to avoid eating red-meats, <'.y, 

 opossum, bandicoot, kangaroo, cattle, such foods as iguana, itc , 

 being permissible. A singular i-estriction from red meats by the 

 nearer relatives has also been met with amongst the Maytown 

 and Middle Palmer River Natives (Koko-minni Blacks). Further- 

 more, instead of carrying about the deceased's fibula, etc., or pau- 

 to, the avenging I'elatives wear in similar position an ornament 

 covered with Ahrus seeds, which is said to contain portions of 

 deceased's flesh (PI. Ixx.) this same decoration may on occasion 

 thus become the sign of a challenge to fight. This ornament 



" I have seen siu'li diniib men even at tlie Mapoon Mission (Batavia Eiver) 

 so late as 1898, and sinee tlien on tlic Embley and Arehev Rivers, and at 

 the Moreton Electric Teh'gra])li Oflice. 



1*^ Bull. 5- Sect 136. 



1" Bull. 8— Sect. 13. 



