Page:History of West Australia.djvu/44

 30 and boomerang, is placed upon the grave. The hair is cut, and with the nail, is buried in a separate hole. Some break the limbs and tie the body into a ball before burial. Some bury the body sitting, and some cut and singe the beard of the corpse, and their own beards, and then rub their bodies with the hair Other instances are given where tribes light a fire in front of the grave. The women weep loudly, and the mother abandons herself to grief and lies on the mound. While talking disconnectedly to her dead son, she draws milk from her breasts on to the earth. Then all go back to their camp, only to return next morning or evening, and for several days in succession, when they weep and wail as before. The fire is re-lit, so that the spirit may warm itself thereby, and not be tempted to go to the nearest camp on that errand, where, perchance, he may do harm to those who have not yet avenged his unnatural death. There are parts of Australia where the dead native is placed on a bower in the branch of a tree, and left there until the flesh falls from his bones. The white remains of the black are then collected, wrapped in a bag and carried by some woman of the tribe during her wanderings with the others, and after a period are deposited in a hollow tree, or buried in the earth. Graves in certain districts are dug north and south, in others east and west. On the south coast two mounds are raised; in other localities one; while Grey saw four mounds of earth made, the different classes of soil being separated. Mr. G. M. Whitfield and Mr. G. F. Moore observed that in some districts east of Perth the trees surrounding the grave were notched with hatchets. Mr. Whitfield describes the custom of erecting huts over the burial-place. Upon the logs on the brushwood a thin layer of earth is thrown, and the hut is built by inclining poles until they meet at the top. Small pieces of wood are put between the crevices of the poles, and rushes or te-tree bark cover them. The hut is carefully swept, and green rushes are placed on the grave, which, thenceforth, is treated with the utmost reverence by the natives. The same writer also states that the spirit is supposed to take the form of a small brown lizard, which may eat into the flesh of the surviving natives. Native graves observed on the goldfields show that the bark of rods are peeled and cut into a sort of rosette and are stuck upon the mound. Further south the feet are cut off and left by the grave. Male mourners cover their foreheads with powdered charcoal; and women colour their heads and breasts with pipe-clay. After the death of a comrade certain tribes refrain from food for periods. The bodies of women are treated with much less reverence, and the ceremony of their burial—if they have any at all—is quickly ended.

By the application of the lex talionis, the death-rate of natives is materially increased. For every death, whether natural, accidental, or warlike, another death occurs. Notwithstanding this, precautions are taken by numerous tribes to prevent an abnormal increase of population. The average family the native woman bears is about the same as the English. But the father has supreme power, and if he wills the infant is killed. It is not known that this is very largely done, but in the case of deformity at birth the life is then and there ended. And yet in other tribes infanticide is abhorred. A young married woman who gives birth to a still-born child is often blamed for the circumstance by her husband, and is compelled to carry the little corpse on her back for days and weeks, under an overpowering stench from the putrifying flesh, until, mayhap, she succumbs to the terrible ordeal.

On no account will a native utter the name of a dead friend, for if he does some spirit may hear and visit a calamity upon him. When one native conveys to another the news of death, he quietly enters the camp, sits by him on his haunches, and places knee to knee, breast to breast, and hand under the thigh, and mournfully and sadly keeps a long silence. With downcast averted eyes the two sit for a given time, when they rise, and by signs make known who the departed is. Sometimes kangaroo skins are placed over their heads, beneath which one "whispers the sad tale" to the other.

And so the life of the Australian aboriginal is lived, and so their condition was when the colony was proclaimed. It is impossible to estimate the number of Western Australian natives at that time, but it must have been more than 50,000 souls. When the white men came and seized the territories of the different black tribes, and killed their kangaroos and other live stock, they also sowed the germs of an insidious and deadly Exterminator, which slowly ate into the life of these light-hearted, simple, ignorant, active people. Year by year their numbers decreased, and soon, sad to say, there will probably be not one native left to typify the people which for uncounted centuries inhabited these lands, oblivious of the grim destiny awaiting them. Spurned, loathed, and forced back beyond the outposts of civilisation, their death-sentence has been passed, and will soon, silently, sternly, irremediably, be executed.

While death has closed the eyes of those tribes which inhabited the fertile regions, there are others who have not yet felt the influence of the resistless invader. In the desolate wilderness, where the white sees nought but arid sand and stunted growth, destitution and waste, and feels parched by the heat of a scorching sun, they have their fondly loved birthplace. Over the plains these children of the desert roam, contented, not suspecting the coming doom. There no white man spurns them, no civilised vice eats away their bodies, no one despoils their daily food, they are yet in possession of their primal wilds.

CHAPTER IV.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA ANNEXED.

OR more than two centuries after the authenticated discovery, and three after its existence was known to civilised people, Western Australia remained untilled and untamed. Old navigators sought to obtain immediate profit from their voyages, to become rich by one bold stroke. They