Page:Dawson - Australian aborigines (1900).djvu/82

 calls on the spirits to appear. Sparks like "lighted matches" then come out of the ground, followed by several spirits. The most conspicuous of these spirits represents the person who bewitched the deceased. They then disappear for ever. Some time ago an aboriginal man named Buckley was found dead near Camperdown: his body was put up in a tree and watched. The aborigines declared that the spirits came, but nothing was done to avenge his death.

A widower mourns for his wife for three moons. Every second night he wails and recounts her good qualities, and lacerates his forehead with his nails till the blood flows down his cheeks, and he covers his head and face with white clay. He must continue to mourn and wear the white clay for other nine moons, unless he shall succeed in taking a human life in revenge for her death. If he cease wearing the clay before the expiry of three moons without taking a life, his deceased wife's relatives say 'he has told a lie,' and they will attempt to kill him. If the woman left a child, it is taken from its father and given to its grandmother or grandfather to rear; but if its father succeeds in taking a life, he has a right to take it back. When the husband has had a great affection for his wife, and is anxious to give expression to his grief, he burns himself across the waist in three lines with a red-hot piece of bark.

A widow mourns for her husband for twelve moons. She cuts her hair quite close, and burns her thighs with hot ashes pressed down on them with a piece of bark, till she screams with agony. Every second night she wails and recounts his good qualities, and lacerates her forehead till the blood flows down her cheeks. At the same time she covers her head and face with white clay. This she must do for three moons, on pain of death. The white clay is worn for twelve moons. Sometimes, towards the end of the period of mourning, one or two stripes of pale brown are painted across the nose and under the eyes, and near the end of the time the colour is changed to red.

For the same period, and in like manner, adults mourn for a father or mother, and parents mourn for their children if over three moons old. Children are not allowed to paint their heads and faces, but are obliged to show their grief by lacerating their brows and crying. While parents are mourning for their children, they live in a separate wuurn away from their friends. In their lamentations and wailings for the dead, the aborigines always enumerate all the good qualities of the deceased; and they appear to mourn sincerely.

The relatives—as far as cousins—of a deceased chief must mourn for him for twelve moons. The other members of the tribe must also mourn for