Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/239

Rh body is immediately borne, and the rotations are repeated. Even the presence of the feather of some rare bird upon the ground will attract their attention to that particular place, and the circumvolutions will there be renewed with increased energy. If there happen to be large trees in the neighbourhood, they walk quickly up to one and then another, resting the bier against them; and, on every such occasion, the deceased is interrogated as before. Between every act of rotation, their march is more extended; so that they thus by degrees proceed farther from the place where the death occurred, until at last they walk off altogether to a distant locality, in which it is resolved to bury the body; the ceremony occasionally continuing more than one day. The place of burial being fixed upon, the earth or sand is loosened by the digging sticks, and thrown out by the hands; the body is laid in the grave on one side, and the hole being filled up again, is usually covered with branches and bark of trees.

The natives feel great repugnance at speaking of a person who has lately died, and especially avoid mentioning his name. This is carried to so great an extent that persons, having the same name, are called by others temporarily given, or by any remaining names that may belong to them. The women, more especially, are so strongly attached to relatives that they hesitate for a long time to part with a dead body; and mothers are often known to carry about their persons dead infants, carefully wrapped up, for many months, while offensive decomposition must undoubtedly be going on. An elderly woman lost her brother. The body was bound up in a large mass of clothes and other rags, and then covered with a foot or two of leaves and branches. On this the sister sat for many days continuously bemoaning her loss, resisting all attempts of the friends to proceed to the burial, and partaking only of food that was kindly brought to her. I was thus prevented from carrying out my intention of witnessing the ceremony.

Among the various superstitions of the natives, there is one that clearly indicates belief in a creative being. The following