ABORIGINAL MOURNING CUSTOMS, ETC. 449 



brown-coloured tenacious mud, obtained from the bottoms of 

 waterholes and streams, with httle or no admixture of gypsum. 

 Yellow or reddish clay, sometimes seen cropping out on the slopes 

 of ridges, or on the banks of watercourses, was utilised for the same 

 purpose. The shape of the cap was the same, no matter what the 

 material consisted of. Clay caps, when removed from the head, 

 and exposed to the weather on a grave, soon became disintegrated 

 and fell to pieces ; hence none of the caps of this material have 

 been preserved by the white people. White is the favourite colour 

 for mourning among the Australian aborigines, but when it cannot 

 be obtained other colours must be substituted for it. 



It is well known that human skulls were used as water-vessels 

 by the aborigines in several parts of Australia. Mr. E. J. Eyre 

 saw some drinking cups of this sort, and gives an illus'tration of one.^ 

 The tribes referred to by Mr. Eyre adjoined the Darling River 

 people on the west. When surveying on the Darling and Paroo 

 Rivers in 1 884-5 I met an old blackfellow who had a skull among 

 his paraphernalia, which he used for drinking purposes on cere- 

 monial occasions. Old " Marra Jimmy," already mentioned, told 

 me that, in addition to their use as mourning emblems, the kopai 

 articles were imitation skulls which the spirits of the dead were 

 supposed to use for their water supply in that arid district. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE XLL 



Figs. 1, 2, 3, Widows Caps. 



Addendum. — For the purpose of enabling the reader to compare the 

 photographs in Figs. 1 and 2 with the " caps " known to have been worn by 

 widows, I have suppUed a block (Fig. 2) illustrating the inside of a widow's 

 cap, made of kopai, showing the marks of the meshes of the net which was 

 on the woman's head. This is a reduction from the larger plate given in the 

 Queensland Geog. Jour, above quoted, and is now repeated in order to 

 bring the whole subject under the reader's eye in one article. 



7.— NOTES ON SOME PUBLISHED STATEMENTS WITH REGARD 



TO THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES. 



By R. H. MATHEWS, L.S. 



[Plate XLIL] 



At the meetmg of this Association held at Brisbane in 1895 the late 

 Mr. T. Worsnop read a paper in which he described, inter alia, 

 certain aboriginal paintings in South Australia and Queensland, 

 which appeared to me to call for further inquiry.- In 1905 1 wrote 



1 Journs. Expeds. Ceiit.Ausl." (London, 1845), vol. 2,pp. 310, .316, and 511, plate iv., fig. 20. 



2 Rep. A.A.A.S., Brisbane, vol. B, pp. 141-2-4, plates 12 and 19. 



E2 



