Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/491

VIII to knees, and the arms folded. It was then wrapped up in sheets of Ti-tree bark secured by cords of string-bark fibre. A hole was dug in easy soil and in a well-shaded locality, about two feet deep and circular. The body was dropped in sideways, and after putting a stone hatchet and a club beside the body, the grave was filled in, and the ceremonies ended. The grief displayed at the funeral of a venerable and honoured man was unquestionably great and genuine. The lamentations at a grave, and the chopping of heads and burning of arms, was something not to be easily forgotten. The grief, though violent, was not of long duration, and by the time the wounds were healed the sorrow was ended. At Port Stephens the body was neatly folded in bark and was placed in the grave at flood-tide; never at ebb, lest the retiring water should bear the spirit of the deceased to some distant country. Before placing the corpse in the grave, two men held it on their shoulders, while a third, standing at the side, struck the body lightly with a green bough, at the same time calling out loudly the names of the acquaintances of the deceased and of others. The belief was that when the name of the person who had caused his death was spoken, the deceased would shake, and cause the bearers to do the same. The next thing would be to seek revenge.

In this tribe an old couple had an only daughter, of whom they were very fond. She died, and her parents built their hut over her grave close to the shore of the harbour, and lived there many months, crying for her every evening at sunset. They then removed their hut a few yards away and remained in it till the grass had completely covered the grave, when they left, and never again visited the place.

It seems probable that the Gringai natives belonged to the same tribe, at any rate the former held the same belief that if the dead were not buried at flood-tide, the ebb might carry away the spirit of the deceased. They also thought that the spirit lingered at the grave for a time.

It is now necessary to revert in the description of burial customs to those of the inland tribes.

With the Wiradjuri, Bulungal, that is, "death," is the