396 i;i:c'()i;i)s of 'I'iik aistkaliax mlseim. 



is due to Malkaii,'' or his counterpart, who iu this country, is 

 believed to kill blacks, or to some human enemy with the 

 niangai''^ ; in the latter case he would make believe that he had 

 picked up the particular incriminating ^ew-craw in t'^e neighbour- 

 hood c£ the grave, and accuse some individual of having committed 

 the crime. In other cases, the near relatives of the deceased may 

 learn something for themselves by stickiii": upiigbt a small forked 

 stick on the grave itself, and placing on it a manda-kuya''' ; this 

 is done at nigbt, and if on the following morning this amulet has 

 fallen down, it is })roof positive that the late lamented has met 

 his death at tl e hands of an enemy " from a long way country." 



11. In the Upper Georgina ])istrict, along the river from 

 Cavandotta upwards, tree-burial is practised. A sort of platform 

 of logs is built in the tree about ten or twelve feet from the ground, 

 and upon this, wrapped in its net, etc., the corpse is laid : various 

 sticks and bushes are placed on top, and in and among them the 

 deceased's possessions may be enclosed. The body is usually laid 

 -with the head in the direction of the north or north-east. Among 

 the Yaro-inga, between Urandangie and Headingley, I was in- 

 fornijed by members of the tribe that, in the special cases of im- 

 portant personages, when all tlie Hesh is rotted off, the bones may 

 be removed and buried in the ground, with nothing on the surface 

 to indicate their presence beneath. In the neighbourhood of 

 Camooweal, I have seen tlie body of a flog buried up in a tree in 

 exactly the same manner as a human corpse. Gypsum in this 

 district is also used as a sign of uk turning : the same material 

 prevails also in the Leichhardt-8elw3'n District, thougli the Kal- 

 kaduns use red and yellow paint in addition. 



12. To return to tiie eastern coast-line, when any ordinary 

 adult male died at Toi'illa or Pine Mountain''", his big toes as well 

 as his legs were bound together. His wife and blood-relatives 

 stayed in camp where they moaned and wept, cutting their hccids 

 with tomahawks and beating themselves with sticks and shields, 

 while other blacks would remove the corpse to a spot about half a 

 mile away, dig a shallow grave, and scatter the excavated soil to 

 n distance of a few feet all the way round. The body was next 

 laid in tlie grave and covered over with logs, sticks, etc., but no 

 soil, that which was excavated being carefully smoothed over. 



••' Bull 6— Sect. 118. 

 • <• Bull. 5— Sect. 144. 

 '■• Bull. 5— Sect. 1.54. 

 ' '■ Information given h\ Mr. W. H. Flowers, late of Torilla. 



