Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/488

462 included; even in one case a canoe was cut into pieces so that it could be put in the grave. Everything belonging to a dead person was put out of sight.

The Ngarigo tied a dead man up tightly, the hands placed open on either side of his face, and the knees drawn up to the head. The grave was sometimes made like a well with a side chamber. In other cases it was made by digging out a cavity in a bank, as was done in the case just quoted by the Theddora. In this tribe also everything belonging to the deceased was buried with him.

The practice of the Yuin tribes is that when a man dies his body is wrapped up in an opossum rug. His articles of dress or ornament are put with him, stuffed under his head, or wherever there is room. A sheet of bark is rolled round him and corded tight. His weapons are given to his friends. The medicine-man then climbs up a tree, at the foot of which the corpse has been placed, and the tree must be a large and branching one. The women and children remain at the camp. All the men present, whether related to the deceased or not, climb up the tree after the medicine-man. He, being up among the branches, shouts out "Kai!" that is, "Hallo!" and looks up into the air. Then all listen carefully for the voice of the Tulugal, that is, the spirit or ghost. At length there is heard a far-distant reply of "Kai!" If the voice of the Tulugal is clear and distinct, he has died of some sickness, but if it is dull and choking, then he has been "caught," that is, killed by some evil magic. Sometimes the Tulugal tries to get back to the body. If the medicine-man is not strong enough to send him away, it has been said to come rushing into the tree-top with a noise like a bird flying, and to push the medicine-man down the bole of the tree by the head, and then to get into the covering of bark surrounding the corpse, from which the medicine-man has much apparent difficulty in removing him.

The Tulugal, as I have said, is the ghost, from Tulu, "a hole," or "grave," and gal, the possessive postfix, "of," or "belonging to." The word, however, means not only the human ghost, but also is applied to beings who lived in trees, rocks, or caves in the mountains, and who were credited with stealing