Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/493

VIII accompany the section of the tribe to which he belonged, he was left in charge of a man; or, if a woman, in charge of a woman, assisted by a youth whose duty it was to attend to and finally to bury their charge if death occurred. A Headman might be buried in a Bora ground, under one of its marked trees, but to cheat the Kruben (an evil being), other trees were marked, and other graves dug, without any bodies in them. The Kruben is supposed to be a supernatural creature, living in hollow trees, or in water-holes. It is supposed to go about doing harm, especially by carrying off children. The Murri (i.e. Man, in the Kamilaroi tongue) say that it would steal up to the camp at night, and catch children, and tear them. This seems to be an analogous belief to that of the Coast Murring as to the Tulugal.

The Wollaroi placed the body of a man on a stage, and the mourners sat under it and rubbed the oil which exuded from the body on themselves, so that they might become strong. When the flesh left the bones, they were buried. A female was buried at once, and a child was placed in a tree.

Among the Unghi the usual method of burial is the same as our own, but occasionally a blackfellow after death undergoes a very primitive system of embalming. A kind of platform is erected upon which the corpse is laid, having first been placed in a rude bark coffin. Beneath the platform a fire is lighted on which is thrown green boughs of a species of sandal-wood, and a dense smoke is kept up for perhaps a week or ten days, after which the tribe depart, taking the body with them, and visit the places the deceased frequented during life. Months are spent in this way, and the remains are finally deposited in a hollow tree.

On the Maranoa the graves are nearly always boomerang-shaped, with the convex side towards the west. The body is tied up in a sheet of bark immediately after death, the toes being tied together, as are the hands also. Occasionally a vessel containing water is suspended near the grave lest the deceased should want a drink. Not infrequently, however, the body is dried and carried about for a long time—even,