Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/45

40 or doorway is left at the eastern end. These openings are never more than two feet high; in fact, they are only just large enough to allow of a full-grown man to get in by creeping on hands and knees. The tops of the graves, or floors, are covered with thin layers of grass, which is renewed from time to time, as it becomes withered.

The tombs are enclosed with brush fences; the forms of the enclosures always take the shape of a diamond, the tomb being the centre thereof. All the grass inside of the fence is neatly shaved off, and the ground is swept quite clean. It is kept in this tidy condition for two or three years. After the lapse of that time, however, the whole arrangement is permitted to dwindle to decay, and after a few more years the very site of it is forgotton [sic].

When a first-born child dies, should it be a son (if a daughter it is hidden out of sight as soon as possible), and under two years of age, instead of being buried in the usual manner, the body is tightly swaddled in an opossum cloak, and well fastened round with cords, until the body assumes the appearance of a long narrow bundle; not, however, showing the outline of the figure, as is the case with a body prepared for burial, but looking exactly similar to a bale of skins ready for despatch to market. This bundle the mother carries with her wherever she goes, and at night sleeps with it by her side; and this she continues persistantly [sic] to do for six months, until from decay nothing but bones remain. After this, they (the bones) are put in the ground and forgotten.

These decomposing atoms of mortality do not tend to make the atmosphere in the vicinity of the camp either