350 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 
place being selected, the cemeteries often present a 
picturesque appearance. Graves are frequently 
visited by the women at intervals, for some months, 
and at such times the wail is renewed, and their 
bodies lacerated as at the interment. At Boga Lake, 
I saw a grave with a very neat hut of reeds made 
over it, surmounted by netting, and having a long 
curious serpentine double trench, of a few inches 
deep, surrounding it ; possibly it might have been 
the burial place of the native mentioned by Major 
Mitchell, as having been shot by his black, Piper, at 
that lake. 
Nets, but not implements, are sometimes buried 
with the natives ; nor do the survivors ever like to 
use a net that has belonged to a man who is dead. 
There are not any ceremonies attending the 
burial of young children ; and the male relatives 
often neglect to attend at all, leaving it altogether to 
the women. 
The natives have not much dread of going near 
to graves, and care little for keeping them in order, 
or preventing the bones of their friends from being 
scattered on the surface of the earth. 
I have frequently seen them handling them, or 
kicking them with the foot with great indifference. 
On one occasion when out with an old native look- 
ing for horses before it was daylight, I came to a 
grave of no very old date, and where the boughs 
and bushes built over in the form of a hut were 
still remaining undisturbed ; the weather was ex- 
