NOirni liUEIiNSLAXU ET11N0(;UAPIIY — ROTII. 4:01 



at early day break. Portion.s of it, e.g., chest and Imck where the 

 .scars were, were given to the women friends of another tribe, wlio 

 when tliey got back to their camps, would start another crying 

 match over them on their own account. This giving of the skins 

 to women of another tribe denoted that tliese womeji's husbands 

 and their friends were not considered the guilty parties : it was a 

 sort of confidential tip that they were not suspected and might in 

 perfect safety come to visit the tribesmen of the person deceased. '' 

 After the remaining skin, with the bones, had been carried about 

 by the women already particularised, for some two or three 

 months, or until such time as another corpse had to be similarly 

 treated, the dilly-bag was finally slung up on top of a forked stick 

 stuck upright within a hollow tree.'^'' Several of such bags might 

 be placed in the same tree which was considered " dimanggali," 

 i.e. tabu. 



"J^-ee-burial without eating was the method of disposal in the 

 case of any ordinary male mortals, and all women e.xcept those 

 killed in fight or who had died suddenly in good condition. 

 After removal of the genitalia as before mentioned, the body was 

 wrapped round in a sheet of bark, tied tightly I'ound beyond the 

 head, and bound carefully round and round with wattle-bark, only 

 the tips of the toes being left exposed. It 

 was carried feet-foremost on the shoulders of 

 two men to some gully or out-of-the-way place 

 in which they never hunted (if on the coast, 

 to one of the mangrove islands) where a tree 

 with suitable fork, i.e. six or seven feet off the 

 ground, was chosen. Two forked sticks were 

 next cut and fixed upright about seven feet 

 from the tree, and a platform erected (fig. 60), but in such 

 a way that when the body was resting on it, with head 

 next the tree, the feet were always towards the N\est. 

 Under this platform a circular space of about four feet diameter 

 was cleared, and here a small fii-e was made, with the 

 deceased's spear and waddy (if a male) or digging-stick (if 

 a female) stuck in the ground : the deceased's spirit was thus 

 enabled to go about and hunt at niuht, and also cook his or her 



Tills explaiued liow Mr. Tom Petrie was receivud so well by tribes bejond 

 llio Turi'bal boundaries, when they knew that lie liad been given por- 

 tions of tlie skin of Yabba's son, a well known and respeelecl Brisbane 

 character. 



In neiglibouring tribes, a shelter-cave now and again ve])laced tlie lioilow 

 tre(!. 



