216 
NOUTH AUSTRALIA. 
least the tribes with v/hich ire are most familiar, liave 
certain customs which are not general among the abori- 
gines ot this continent. For instance, their mode of 
burying the dead is singular. The body is deposited in 
a sort of cradle, formed by a number of poles, ai*ranged 
within the crutches of two forked posts stuck upright in 
the ground. It is enveloped in many folds of the paper- 
like bark of the tea-tree, and is left there until the skeleton 
only remains, which is then deposited either in a general 
receptacle for the relics of the dead, or, if death should 
have occurred at so great a distance from this spot as to 
render removal inconvenient, it is placed upright within 
the hollow trunk of a decayed tree. AYe also discovered 
a distinction of caste, or rather, the remains of such a 
distinction, for the natives themselves appear to have 
forgotten its origin and purport. These castes are three 
in number, and are termed respectively ' Manjar-ojalli/ 
' Manjar wuli/ and *Mambulgit.' The former is sup- 
posed to have sprung from fire, the term ' ojalli' having 
this signification. The ' Manjar-wuli/ as the term 
implies, bad their origin in the land. The siguification of 
the term ' Mambulgit* is exceedingly obscure. The 
natives themselves state that it implies ' makers of nets/ 
The ' Manjar -ojalli' is certainly the superior caste, for, 
among those tribes in which chieftainship exists, the prin- 
cipal families are invariably of this caste, and are in the 
habit of alluding to the circumstance with considerable 
pride. "With regard to the two remaining castes, I never 
could discover exactly which was the superior, indeed, the 
statements of the natives themselves are so contradictory 
upon this point_, that it never has been, and, perhaps, never 
