Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/501

VIII cerements and placed in a grave, blocked in some cases with wood before being filled with earth. The common practice of placing logs on the grave is, I think, not so much to prevent the ghost from getting out, as to prevent the dingoes from disinterring the body. The breaking of the bones by the Herbert River tribes is a very clear example of the precautions taken to prevent the ghost from wandering, although it is an exceptionally severe means of doing so. The practice of burying implements, ornaments, or weapons with the dead is clear proof that they are supposed to continue their lives as ghosts in the sky-land much as they had done when in the body on earth.

A belief is common to all the tribes referred to, in the former existence of beings more or less human in appearance and attributes, while differing from the native race in other characteristics. Their existence, nature, and attributes are seen in the legendary tales which recount their actions.

These tales may be divided into three kinds, which roughly agree with the areas indicating the range respectively of the Lake Eyre tribes, those to the north of them, first discovered by Spencer and Gillen, and of the tribes to the south-east.

The legends of the Lake Eyre tribes are, however, not peculiar to them, but are held by those who have the same two-class system of social organisation, as far to the south as Spencer Gulf, and to the north of Lake Eyre approximately to latitude 25°.

These legends relate to the Mura-muras, who were the predecessors and prototypes of the blacks, who believe in their former and even their present existence. Their wanderings over Central Australia, the origin of the present native race and of the sacred ceremonies, are embodied in the legends and preserved by oral tradition.

As these legends, which have been carefully preserved by my fellow-worker, the Rev. Otto Siebert, are given fully in Chapter X. and the Appendix, all that I need do here is to