Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/37

32 are not cooking places at all, but a description of Tumuli, left by some race long since passed away, and quite forgotten; still, so far as the general public are aware, none of the writers on the point have had sufficient curiosity to dig into the mounds, and so set it at rest once and for all.

Blackfellows, ovens are not misnomers, but to all intents and purposes are genuine cooking places, and the following is the manner of their formation:—

A family, or perhaps several families, as the case may be, select a site for their camp, where abundance of game and other sources of food exist, and are procurable with the least expenditure of time and trouble. Towards the middle of the afternoon the hunters drop into camp, with the result of the day's industry, consisting, in all probability, of all sorts and sizes; for our present purpose, however, we will imagine the game to consist of opossums only.

As soon as the hunters have seated themselves comfortably, they set to work skinning the opossums, whilst several of the lyoores go off with their yamsticks. When they reach the spot which they had before selected for the purpose, they begin with a will to excavate a hole three feet in diameter and eighteen inches deep. During the digging of the hole, any pieces of clay of about the size of cricket balls which are turned out are carefully placed on one side. When the hole has been dug sufficiently deep, it is swept or brushed out with some boughs, or a bunch of grass; it is then filled to the top with firewood (which the lyoores had previously collected for that purpose), upon which the