448 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



Mr. J. E. Suttor writes me as follows : — 



" In 1880, while mustering cattle on the back part of Curranyalpa run, 

 1 came across two old black men and a woman camped at a waterhole. 

 They had shifted out from the Darling River to hunt opossums for the skins. 

 The old woman was hang in the camp very sick. A few days later the two 

 black fellows passed my camp, which was about five miles from their own, 

 and told me the old woman had died. Going that way a couple of days 

 afterwards I found the woman's grave on a pine ridge close by the camp I 

 had previously seen, and upon it were lying two hollowed kopai articles 

 somewhat resembling widows' caps. At the place where the cainp fire had 

 been was a piece of bark, with the remains of kopai plaster upon it, together 

 with some lumps of kopai, burnt and ready to break up, if more had been 

 required. The woman's husband and the other man, who was probably a 

 relative, had each left a token of their sorrow upon the grave before they 

 ■went away." 



Although a widow's head-dress consisted of a cap similar in 

 shape to those depicted at pages 67 and 68 of volume 24 of the 

 Queensland Geog. Journ., they were also worn by a woman for an 

 adult son or daughter, or for a favourite brother or sister. Their 

 use was not i^estricted to the women only. Old " Marra Jimmy," 

 already quoted, said that men sometimes wore such a cap in 

 mourning for their mothers, mothers* sisters, their own elder 

 sisters, their wives and other blood relations of mature years. 

 Generally speaking, however, the men used the kind of articles 

 described in the present paper, which were never worn on the head, 

 but were deposited at the grave. 



The facts just narrated would account for the comparatively 

 large numbers of so-called " caps " which have been found at 

 individual graves. Mr. T. Worsnop mentions four found on a 

 grave, one of which weighed 14 pounds, but he does not state 

 whether any of them had marks of the meshes of a net on the inner 

 surface.^ A friend writes me that he has seen five caps similarly 

 used, but cannot remember details. A station owner on the 

 Darling River informed me that many years ago there was an 

 aboriginal grave not far from his homestead which had from half- 

 a-dozen to a dozen articles lying upon it, which then appeared to 

 him to be " caps." They were not all of one size, but comprised 

 some very large ones, others medium size, whilst others were small. 

 In the cases just mentioned it is likely that some were widows' 

 caps, some had possibly been worn by men, whilst others had been 

 manufactured as tributes of mourning. The latter kind could be 

 placed upon the grave as soon as the body was buried, whereas a 

 " cap " could not be deposited till the wearer's term of mourning 

 had expired. 



The widow's cap illustrated in the Queensland Geog. Journ., 

 already quoted, is made from kopai, with only a small mixture of 

 sand or ashes, because kopai is abundant over a large portion of the 

 Darling Valley. But on some of the tributaries of the Darling, 

 such as the Macquarie, Mara, Bogan, etc., where gypsum is found 

 only in small quantities, the mourning caps were made out of a 



1" .Aborigines of Australia "( Adelaide, 1897), p. 63. 



