Page:Dawson - Australian aborigines (1900).djvu/80

 Under ordinary circumstances a corpse is kept in the wuurn one night; in very hot weather it is kept only a few hours; and, immediately on its removal, a large fire is kindled on the spot, and the wuurn and all the materials connected with it are burned. Even the grass and the leaves, if dry enough, are carefully gathered and consumed.

Before the minds of the aborigines were poisoned by the superstitions of the white people, they had not the slightest dread of the dead body of a friend, nor had they any repugnance to remain beside it. Indeed, it often occurred that, while awaiting the arrival of friends from a distance, they kept watch constantly for six days beside the corpse, and in the same wuurn; by turns sleeping and wailing, and protecting the body from the flies by green boughs of trees. They have their own superstition, however, connected with this watching; for they believe that should the corpse open its eyes and stare at any one, that person will not live long.

The approaching death of a chief causes great excitement. Messengers are sent to inform the neighbouring tribes, and all his relatives and friends come and sit around him till he expires. They then commence their mourning. They enumerate the good qualities of the deceased, and wail and lacerate their foreheads. Messengers are sent, with their heads and faces covered with white clay, to inform the tribes of his death, and to call them to attend his funeral obsequies.

Immediately after his death the bones of the lower part of the leg and of the fore-arm are extracted, cleaned with a flint knife, and placed in a basket; the body is tied with a bark cord, with the knees to the face, and wrapped in an opossum rug. It is then laid in a wuurn filled with smoke, and constantly watched by friends with green boughs to keep the flies away.

When all the mourners, with their faces and heads covered with white clay, have arrived, the body is laid on a bier formed of saplings and branches, and is placed on a stage in the fork of a tree, high enough from the ground to be out of the reach of wild dogs. Everyone then departs to his own home. The adult relatives and friends of the deceased visit the spot every few days, and weep in silence. No children accompany them, as 'they are frightened.'

At the expiry of one moon, the relatives and the members of his own and the neighbouring tribes come to burn the remains. The body is removed from the tree. Each chief, assisted by two of his men, helps to carry it, and to place on the funeral pyre; while the relatives of the deceased sit in a semicircle to