MOURNING FOR THE DEAD, 
353 
had evidently brought it for that purpose and 
yielded it unresistingly. Pacing with this weapon 
furiously up and down the circle* he advanced and 
retreated before the accused, brandishing the spear 
at them, and alternately threatening and wailing. 
No one replied, but the melancholy dirge was still 
kept up by the widows in the rear. 
After sufficiently exciting himself in this manner 
for some time, he advanced with uplifted spear, and 
successively repeating his blows speared four or five 
persons among the accused natives in the left arm, 
each of them pushing forward his arm unflinch- 
ingly for the blow as he advanced upon them. 
Tenberry now again hung down his head and took 
up his lamentation for a short time, after which 
he paced about rapidly, vehemently haranguing, 
and violently gesticulating, and concluded by or- 
dering all the natives present to separate their 
camps, and each tribe to make their own apart. 
Mourning is performed by the men by cutting 
their beards* and hair, and daubing the head and 
breast with a white pigment ; among the women, 
* The custom among the Australians of putting dust or 
ashes on the head, of shaving the head, of clipping the beard, 
and of lacerating the body at death or in sign of mourning, ap- 
pears very similar to the practices among the Israelites in the 
time of Moses. Vide Leviticus xix. 27, 28 ; Leviticus xxi. 5 ; 
Jeremiah xlviii. 37; Ezekiel xxvii. 30, 31, 32; Revelations 
xviii. 19, &c. 
2 A 
VOL. II. 
