NATIVE MOUNDS. 103 



CHAPTER XXII. 



NATIVE MOUNDS. 



Native moumls, so common all over the country, are called ' pok j-uu ' by the 

 Chaa wuurong tribe; 'po'ok,' by the Kuurn kopan noot tribe; and 'piuilwuurn ' 

 by the Peek whuurong tribe ; and were the sites of large, permanent habitations, 

 which formed homes for many generations. The great size of some of them, and 

 the vast accumulation of burnt earth, charcoal, and ashes which is found in and 

 around them, is accounted for by the long continuance of the domestic hearth, the 

 decomposition of the building materials, and the debris arising from their frequent 

 destruction by bush fires. They never were ovens, or original places of interment, 

 as is generally supposed, and were only used for purposes of burial after 

 certain events occurred while they were occupied as sites for residences — such as 

 the death of more than one of the occupants of the dwelling at the same time, or 

 the family becoming extinct; in which instance they were called 'muuru 

 kowuutuung' by the Chaa wuurong tribe, and ' muuruup kaakee ' by the Kuurn 

 kopan noot tribe, meaning ' ghostly place,' and were never afterwards used as 

 sites for residences, and only as places for burial. There is an idea that when 

 two persons die at the same time on anj' particular spot, their deaths, if not 

 attributed to the spell of an enemy, are caused by something unhealthy about 

 the locality, and it is abandoned for ever. It is never even visited again, except 

 to bury the dead ; and the mounds are- used for that purpose only because the 

 soil is loose, and a grave is more easily dug in them than in the solid ground. 

 The popular notion of their having been ovens is refuted, not only by the 

 unanimous testimony of all the old aborigines, but also by a careful examination 

 of the structure and stratification of the mounds. On opening a very perfect 

 circular mound, sixty-five feet in diameter and five feet high, and intersecting it 

 by parallel trenches dug at intervals of three feet, down to the original surface 

 soil, and through that and a bed of gravel to the clay, not the slightest sign was 

 observed of the ancient alluvial soil having been disturbed. Had an oven ever 

 existed there, it would have been distinctly visible in the floor of the wuurn, as 

 native ovens are always formed by digging deep holes in the ground. In cutting 



