XOHTH yUlCKNSLANL* KTIIXOGKAPHV — KUTII. .')97 



^ext nioriiing, this smooth loose soil round the jj;ra\e wou'd be 

 carefully examined for any tracks, for it was firmly belie\ed that 

 the individual who had murdered or otherwise doomed the deceased 

 would be certain to visit the victim's place of burial, and so be 

 identified. Three or four days later portions of the flesh would 

 1)6 cut away and put into small dilly-bays, which were together 

 tied up in a bundle and carried about by the widow or mother 

 for months, fi'om six to twelve, until such time as the bones were 

 disinterred, when they were all j^assed through a more or less 

 triangular aperture cut in a lioUow ti'ee. If tlie deceased had 

 been a great warrior, his body, previous to the gi'ound-burial, 

 would be placed on a stage about six feet high for some few days' 

 during which period the young men would go miderneath to 

 collect the drippings which would then be cai-efully rubbed into 

 their skins : occasionally the kidney fat would be removed and 

 used in similar fashion. With women, no trouble appears to liave 

 been taken : they were just wrajiped in bark, put in a shallow 

 grave lined below with long saplings, covered with earth, saplini;S 

 again, and left there. When little children died, their laodies 

 were kept whole in camp until tree-buried. Mourning was in all 

 cases mnintained until the final tree-burial, and in the case of a 

 married man's death, the widow had to remain in camp througli- 

 out all this period, only after which was she allowed to re-marr}'. 

 W^ith very slight variations, the description of the disposal of the 

 dead at Torilla and Pine Mountain holds good for the whole coast- 

 line from the neighbourhood of Mackay to Broadsound, llock- 

 hampton, including the Keppel Islands, down to certainly Miriam 

 Vale, though naturally such practices with closer European 

 settlement, etc., are rapidly dying out if not already extinct. 

 Throughout the tract of country under consideration, I had several 

 opportunities during 1897 of examining the empty graves as well 

 as the bones, almost invariably male adult, hidden in the neigh- 

 bouring trees. The apertures in these hollow butts— more or 

 less mitre-form, though with age and growth of the bark they 

 become rather oval (PI. Ixxiv.) — are from twelve to twenty- 

 two inches long by five to seven inches wide, cut at 

 a height of from four to six feet from the ground, and 

 closed from within either with grass, sticks, or bark : they 

 are said to have been painted around in red and white, 

 zig-zag fashion. At that time also I heard frequent mention of 

 the scaffoldings that had been noticed at Yeppoon, Mt. Hedlow, 

 and elsewhere, but which even then were things of the past. At 

 Miriam Yale''" the platform was formed of a few sheets of bark 



''■' The description of the burial ceremony here was g,iven me by the late Mr. 

 E. C. Roe. 



