64 AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES. 



Under ordinary circumstances a corpse is kept in the wuurn one night ; in 

 very hot weather it is kept only a few hours ; and, immediately on its removal, 

 a large fire is kindled on the spot, and the wuurn and ail the materials connected 

 with it are burned. Even the grass and the leaves, if dry enough, are carefully 

 gathered and consumed. 



Before the minds of the aborigines were poisoned by the superstitions of the 

 white people, they had not the slightest dread of the dead body of a fiiend, nor 

 had they any repugnance to remain beside it. Indeed, it often occurred that, while 

 awaiting the arrival of friends from a distance, they kept watch constantly for 

 six days beside the corpse, and in the same wuurn ; by turns sleeping and wailing, 

 and protecting the body from the flies by green boughs of trees. They have 

 their own superstition, however, connected with this watching ; for they believe 

 that should the corpse open its eyes and stare at any one, that person will not 

 live long. 



The approaching death of a chief causes great excitement. Messengers are 

 sent to inform the neighbouring tribes, and all his relatives and friends come and 

 sit around him till he expires. They then commence their mourning. They 

 enumerate the good qualities of the deceased, and wail and lacerate their 

 foreheads. Messengers are sent, with their heads and faces covered with white 

 clay, to inform the tribes of his death, and to call them to attend his funeral 

 obsequies. 



Immediately after his death the bones of the lower part of the leg and of 

 the fore-arm are extracted, cleaned with a flint knife, and placed in a basket ; the 

 body is tied with a bark cord, with the knees to the face, and wrapped in an 

 opossum rug. It is then laid in a wuurn filled with smoke, and constantly 

 watched by friends with green boughs to keep the flies away. 



When all the mourners, with their faces and heads covered with white clay, 

 have arrived, the body is laid on a bier formed of saplings and branches, and is 

 placed on a stage in the fork of a tree, high enough from the ground to be out of 

 the reach of wild dogs. Everyone then departs to his own home. The adult 

 relatives and friends of the deceased visit the spot every few days, and weep in 

 silence. No children accompany them, as 'they are frightened.' 



At the expiry of one moon, the relatives and the members of his own and 

 the neighbouring tribes come to burn the remains. The body is removed from 

 the tree. Each chief, assisted by two of his men, helps to carry it, and to place 

 it on the funeral pyre ; while the relatives of the deceased sit in a semicircle to 



