28 THE ABORIGINES OF THE LOWER MURRAY, LOWER 
some small degree, if they can elaborate enough of energy to 
enable them to give their waist-belts an extra twist, thereby con- 
tracting the vacuum which lack of food has made so painfully 
apparent. 
SIGNS OF MOURNING FOR THE DEAD.—Or SEPULTURE, AND THE 
CEREMONIES CONNECTED THEREWITH. 
When men of consideration or young people die there is much 
mourning and grief in the tribe, and with those related by blood 
to the deceased the mourning takes the shape of very violent 
physical suffering. They (the relations) score their backs and 
arms, even their very faces don’t always escape, with red hot 
brands until they become hideous with ulcers. These ulcers stand 
them in good stead, however, in this way: if their grief is not 
suilicientiy acute to induce a genuine cry, they have only to come 
roughishly against the ulcers, when they will have cause enough 
for any quantity of lachrymosity. At sunrise and sunset, the one 
who is principally bereaved begins to cry or howl in a long 
monotonous kind of yodeling tone, which is immediately taken up 
by old and young. At first it is begun in a low cadence, but 
gradually it swells into such volumes of uncouth, excruciating 
h i Th 
. . nly on an encampment tricked out in 
this guise, could hardly be blamed if a thrill of real terror did 
They prepare their dead for burial b i ightl 
ee A Y wrapping them up tightly — 
in the cloak which they wore during life. aiinding numberless 
plies of cord round the body to keep the cloak in its place. This 
