ABORIGINALS OF EAST CENTRAL AUSTRALIA. 517 



is dug about 6ft. in depth. Cane grass is placed on the bottom, 

 and the naked body is lowered down. Cane grass is then placed 

 over the body, and the grave finally filled up and rammed down 

 with earth naixed with cut up cane grass. The body is laid at full 

 length in the grave, and pointing north and south. Burials always 

 take place at sunrise ; and after a death the tribe leave the camp 

 for three days and nights, keeping up during that time a con- 

 tinuous howling. The relatives of the deceased enter into mourning 

 by covering themselves from head to foot with burnt gypsum, similar 

 to pipeclay. Five small circular holes about 2ft. in depth are exca- 

 vated by means of a boomerang round the wurley of the deceased, 

 and the wurley is then burnt. The bones of the dead are never 

 disttu'bed or touched, except for the purpose of obtaining an arm- 

 bone to point at an enemy. The murder of a native is always 

 avenged by one of the deceased's relatives. 



Wurlei/s. — The wurleys at a permanent camp are dome-shaped 

 circular erections built of logs, cane grass, and mud. In the cold 

 weather fires are kept constantly burning inside. During the 

 summer months the natives keep inside their wurleys in the 

 daytime, thus avoiding the intense heat, but sleep outside at night. 

 At a temporary camp a breakwind of boughs is erected, and at 

 night they sleep in hot sand, an excavation being made in the sand 

 over which a fire has been burning in the daytime. 



JFire. - Fii'e is produced by a hole being bored in a piece of 

 native flax or rotten wood, and fine sand placed in it; a piece of 

 hard wood is twirled in the hole between the two hands, and in a 

 few minutes the friction produces fire. Fires are only kejjt alight 

 as long as required. Fire is supposed to have the power of speech, 

 telling them Avhat other blackfellows are doing a long way off. 



Food. — With the exception of the animal they are named after 

 and pork, anything in the way of food is eaten. Gum picked from 

 bean trees f Bauhiiitiia sp.J ; yowas, somewhat like a pea, found 

 in the sandhills and eaten green ; munyeroo (similar to an Oxalis), 

 eaten green (probably Claytonia bulonensisj ; pigweed seeds 

 ground between two flat stones, and the flour mixed with water 

 and made into a paste ; nardoo seeds f Marsilia quadrifoUaJ 

 ground, mixed with fish fat and baked in the hot ashes ; mussels, 

 mudlacoopa (fish), multa multa (fish), iguanas, rats, carpet snakes, 

 dingo pups, wakarees (a grub found in trees), ducks, pelicans, 

 divers, and golahs. These last are simply covered with hot ashes 

 and baked whole. Crows, hawks, black cockatoos, or venomous 

 snakes (cool as) are nor eaten. Yoimg blackfellows are prohibited 

 from eating emu and SAvan eggs, it being supposed that this diet 

 woidd make them greyheaded. They are, to a certain extent, 

 cannibals, children being sometimes eaten, and if a strong black- 

 fellow shoidd die his body is suspended over a fire and the fat that 

 exudes and drops is caught in a wooden vessel (koolaman): this fat 

 is rubbed over their bodies. The sinews of the dead man are then 



