FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 347 
as soon as practicable after death, and a spearing 
match generally ensues. 
Old people are also buried without unnecessary 
delay. I have even seen a man in the prime of 
life all ready placed upon the bier before he was 
dead, and the mourners and others waiting to convey 
him to his long home, as soon as the breath 
departed. 
In the case of a middle-aged, or an old man, the 
spearing and fighting contingent upon a death is 
always greater than for younger natives. The 
burial rites in some tribes assimilate to those prac- 
tised near Adelaide ; in others I have witnessed 
the following ceremony : — The grave being dug, 
the body was laid out near it, on a triangular bier 
(birri), stretched straight on the back, enveloped in 
cloths and skins, rolled round and corded close, and 
with the head to the eastward ; around the bier 
were many women, relations of the deceased, wailing 
and lamenting bitterly, and lacerating their thighs, 
backs, and breasts, with shells or flint, until the 
blood flowed copiously from the gashes. The males 
of the tribe were standing around in a circle, with 
their weapons in their hands, and the stranger tribes 
near them, in a similar position, imparting to the 
whole a solemn and military kind of appearance. 
After this had continued for some time, the male 
relatives closed in around the bier, the mourning 
women renewed their lamentations in a louder tone, 
and two male relatives stepped up to the bier, and 
