Page:Dawson - Australian aborigines (1900).djvu/81

Rh windward of the pyre, and each tribe by itself behind them. The fire is lighted and kept together by several men of the tribe, who remain till the body is consumed, and till the ashes are sufficiently cool to allow the fragments of small bones to be gathered. These are then pounded up with a piece of wood, and put into the small bag prepared for them. The widow of the deceased chief, by first marriage, wears the bag of calcined bones suspended from her neck, and she also gets the lower bones of the right arm. which she cleans and wraps in an opossum skin. This she puts in a long basket made of rashes, and ornamented with kangaroo teeth, emu feathers, cockatoos' crest feathers, red paint, and a lock of hair of the deceased. These relics she carries for two years, and keeps them under cover, with great care. She cannot marry while she carries these. Should she resolve to be married before the two years are out, she delivers the basket and bones to her deceased husband's next widow, or widows, in succession; failing them, to his mother; but should she also be dead, she gives them to his mother's sister, if she has a family; or, lastly, to his eldest daughter, if she is married and has a family. If the deceased has left no such relatives, the widow ultimately buries the bones in a deserted mound and burns the basket.

The eldest sister of the deceased chief gets the lower bones of the left arm, and his aunts get the lower bones of the legs, which are treated in the same way. Failing sisters and aunts, the nearest female relatives, to the degree of first cousins, take their place. The only reason one can assign for the observance of this custom is to induce the relatives of chiefs to keep them alive as long as possible; for the task of carrying dead men's bones for two years cannot be an agreeable one.

The body of a chiefess is treated like that of a chief, and the bones are carried about in a basket in the same way. When the body is burned, at the termination of one moon, if the deceased was greatly beloved by her husband, he gathers the calcined bones, pounds and puts them into a small bag made of opossum skin, which he wears suspended in front of his chest for twelve moons. They are then buried. Until these relics of his wife are buried he cannot marry again. The bodies of the adult sons and daughters of chiefs are disposed of in like fashion, and their bones carried about for the same period by their mother, and other relatives in succession.

If a chief dies of disease which is attributed to the spell of an enemy, his body is put up in a tree and watched all night by a dozen or more of his friends, who conceal themselves behind a log near the body. One of them in a low tone of voice