Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/489

VIII and eating children. It was said that long ago the old men used to go into the mountains, which lie at the back of the Yuin country, where they thought Tulugal might be, and after making a noise like a child crying, they would watch for a Tulugal peeping out of its hole. Having found its abode, they made a fire and burned it.

The Yuin were always afraid that the dead man might come out of the grave and follow them.

The burial practice of the Port Jackson tribes is described by Collins in the year 1796. These tribes, it may be observed, belonged to the Katungal, and were thus kindred to the Yuin.

The young people were buried, but those who had passed the middle age were burned. A boy who died, apparently of fever, was buried in the following manner. The body was placed in a canoe cut to the proper length, together with a spear, fishing-spear, and spear-thrower, and the cord which the dead man had worn round his waist. The canoe with the corpse was carried on the heads of two natives to the grave, the boy's father accompanying it, armed with his spear and throwing-stick. At the grave one man stretched himself in it on the grass with which it was strewn, first on his back and then on his right side. On laying the body in the grave great care was taken to so place it that the sun might look at it as it passed, the natives cutting down for that purpose every shrub that could at all obstruct the view. He was placed on his right side, with his head to the north-west. When the grave was covered in, several branches of shrubs were placed in a half-circle on the south side of the grave, extending from the head to the foot of it. Grass and boughs were likewise placed on the top of it, and crowned with a large log of wood. After strewing it with grass the placer laid himself full length on it for some minutes.

When the wife of Bennillong, who appears from the account to have been a Headman, died, her body was burned. A pile of wood having been prepared of about three feet in height and strewn with grass, the corpse was