34 



tribe. When a death occurs the children sit in a camp 

 apart. 



When a very young child dies the body is buried, placed 

 on its side in a recumbent attitude, and a single oblong 

 layer of stones is placed on the grave. 



When a woman dies the body is surrounded by all the 

 adults. The fleshy parts of the body are cut off and eaten 

 raw by all the adults present. The large bones are cracked 

 and the marrow eaten ; the head is left intact. The remnants 

 of the body are placed in the earth, the trunk lying on its 

 side, and covered with stones. 



When a man or boy dies the body is laid at full length 

 on its back. The big toes are tied together with bark-fibre 

 string. The hands are placed together on the breast, and 

 the thumbs similarly tied. The body is now surrounded with 

 a circle of stones. The women sit round in a circle and wail 

 over the dead man throughout the night following upon the 

 death, the men joining in the mourning. 



Next day the body is placed upon a platform of boughs 

 in a tree and so left until the flesh has decayed and the 

 bones are clean. The bones are now taken down and wrapped 

 in a sheet of paper-bark. An old man takes charge of them 

 and carries them from camp to camp, according to the 

 movements of his party in quest of food. At each new moon 

 the bones are produced, and all the people again mourn the 

 death. A long-drawn wailing is commenced at sundown by 

 one of the old women, and gradually taken up by all present, 

 the lamentation continuing throughout the night. Tears 

 flow down the cheeks of the mourners, and a good deal of 

 genuine emotion is manifested. 



After the third new moon the bones are taken to a cave 

 among the hills of the Whately Range, on the south side of 

 the Glenelg River (pi. viii., figs, a and b). The cave is named 

 "Woorrwai" or "Amu," the latter word meaning the tail of an 

 alligator, and the alligator is connected in some way with this 

 cave ( v . infra ). 



Here the bones, still wrapped in the sheet of paper-bark, 

 and often, though not always, coated with red cchre, are cast 

 on the heap of bones in the centre of the cave. A few flat 

 stones may now be thrown on them, when all care for 

 them ceases. A skull or leg bone may at times roll from the 

 heap to the floor of the cave ; if so, it lies there unnoticed, 

 and bones are scattered promiscuously about the entrance to 

 the cave. 



The children may visit this cave, and are aware of its 

 localitv and what it contains. 



