Page:Dawson - Australian aborigines (1900).djvu/125

Rh had watched it for two days, the relatives put it in a tree for one moon, and then burned it, with the exception of the leg and arm bones, which were given to the friends of the deceased. THE GHOST. A man, travelling in the country of a friendly tribe, came upon a deserted habitation. Above the doorway he saw the usual crooked stick, pointing in the direction which the family had taken; and, all round about the place, pieces of bark covered with white clay, indicating a death. He found tracks leading to a tree, in which he soon discovered a dead body. Anxious to know who had died, he laid down his rug and weapons at the foot of the tree, and ascended it. On removing the opossum rug from the face, he found that it was a friend. He wept for a long time, then came down and went away; but he had not gone far before he heard some magpies making a great noise, as though they saw something strange. He turned round to see what it was, and, to his horror and amazement, saw the ghost of the deceased come down and follow him. He became so terrified that he could not move; and, addressing it, said — 'Why do you frighten me, when I have come to see you, and never did you any harm?' It never spoke, but followed him for a considerable distance, scratching his back meanwhile with its nails, and then returned to the tree. When he reached his friends he told them what had happened, and showed them his back, lacerated and bleeding; and said that he had a presentiment that something bad would befall him before long. At the next meeting of the tribes he was speared through the heart.

THE METEOR. A friend communicates the following anecdote as illustrative of the cleverness of the aborigines. 'On one occasion, having tried in vain to get an old man — known about Camperdown as Doctor George — to understand something of the Christian religion, I turned the conversation to the subject of a large meteor which had appeared a few months previously, and asked him if he had seen it. After a little he caught my meaning, and said — "Yes! me see him, like it fire; him go 'ff 'ff," pointing with his finger its path along the sky. I asked him what he thought it was. He answered, carelessly, "Borak me know." Then suddenly brightening up, and putting on a slyly grave countenance, he said: