382 HliCORUS OF THE AUST15AL1AN MUSEUM. 



the iiew.s (see Bull. 8 — Sect. 8). When the women he;u- this 

 message, tliey cry out and scream, throw themselves on the 

 ground, and blame the individual whom they deem to ha\e 

 caused the death : the men also do a crv, hut not so loutl as the 

 women, nor do they blame anyone while crying : but later on 

 they always do so in a special kind of wail ( = ganil). After two 

 days they leave for the burial service, men and women, not all 

 of them, but some. And when they get close to the place wliere 

 the corpse is lying, the visitors, i.e. the deceased's friends, throw 

 spears at them on the dead man's account. The women ai-e 

 crying all the way to the grave, at the side of which they sit down 

 still crying, tlie men doing the same. But why tlo these visiting 

 friends of the deceased throw spears at them ! Because the dead 

 man had always travelled with them, but had died among his own 

 people without having been to see them (the visitors) for a long- 

 time previously, just as if he had left them altogether. Tliis is 

 the reason for the spear-throwing."' They then keej) the cor[)se 

 in the grave for many days until it gets putrid. Then one man 

 goes away with a tomahawk to cut out the bark-trough to wrap 

 the corpse in. This bark wliich he brings back with liim, he puts 

 in the fire to get the sap out so as to peel it better. Then he ties 

 up the crinkled-extremities''' of the trough, pierces them with a 

 wooden pin, and in the same straight line pierces holes along tlie 

 edges of the trough for the string to go through, from side to side 

 when finally sewn up (Bull. 7, fig. 22(3). Then he smears 

 it with white- and red-clay to make it look pie-bald and give it a 

 nice ai^pearance, while the mother of the deceased plaits a very long- 

 string to tie up the corpse with. When all that is finished, they 

 l)ass another night over it. By sunrise the}' will assemble again 

 on account of the corpse, to take it out of the grave, which of 

 course is only done by the men. No women will then be at the 

 grave. Separate from one another the}' now continue to sit in 

 their camp, from which the ' tabu ' has l)een removed, while tlie 

 mother cries by herself not far away without taking notice of 

 anything. .Viid in the meantime tliey take the corpse out of the 

 grave and put it in the bark trough. But no one touches the 

 body except the wife s l^rotlier-in-law, /.i'., deceased's brother who 



■^* In other words, altliougli tlie dec-cased used to wander about, and Uc 

 friendly -^vitli the visitors, he had not lieeii to st'e them for a loii^ time 

 ])ast, and accordingly his deatli coidd not he (hie to tlieir agency: on 

 the other hand, by throwing the spears at his own peopht, tlie ^ isitors 

 shew whom thcj consider resjioiisible for it. 



•A"i Ngolu- front of tlie ankle which is always more or less wrinkled or 

 creased. 



