Boolk. He would look very serious if you touched these, and he would not fail to inform you that you might die at once if you touched them. They are his instruments of sorcery. With them he makes any of his enemies sick. There is also something very carefully wrapped up with bark and well painted with red-ochre. He might hesitate to tell you what this is: it is the fat of some one whom he has killed. There are also several knick-knacks in his bag which show that he has an eye to business. A glance into the large grass bag of his wife proves that she attends to the provisions. There are a few roots—some Katwort (fruit of the pig-face), the leg of a native bear {Koola or Goola), and the head of a kangaroo. There are also a few opossum skins, for she is busy making a rug (Marook), a few shells which are used in marking the skins, and the end of the tail of an opossum, to which are attached the sinews of the tail. These are used for sewing the rug. Perhaps mixed up with these may be seen the hands of some defunct member of the tribe—that of some friend of the woman's, or perhaps one belonging to a former husband. This she keeps as the only remembrance of one she once loved—and, though years may have passed, even now, when she has nothing else to do, she will sit and moan over this relic of humauity. Sometimes a mother will carry about with her the remains of a beloved child, whose death she mourns. What cares she that it is in a state of decay! She cannot forget the love she bore it, and being without hope of seeing it in a future state, she clings to its decaying body—until at length, becoming too loathsome even for her, she is obliged to put it out of sight. As to their dead—whether infants or adults—they usually keep them long after the proper time. It is a pity that men in a savage state should take delight in doing that which is nasty. But such is the fact. It is a very common custom for the tribe, or that portion of it who are related to one who has died, to rub themselves with the moisture that comes from the dead friend. They rub themselves with it until the whole of them have the same smell as the corpse. The writer will never forget his attending the funeral of a young man who had been kept much too long. As he stood on the grave, trying to improve the occasion, he was disgusted with the sickly smell which all had; and even for days after, when he came near one of the blacks, he was assailed with the same disagreeable odour."[1] There is a very amusing and truthful description of a native family given by Grey. Speaking of the people of Western Australia, he says:—
"The natives nearly always carry the whole of their worldly property about with them, and the Australian hunter is thus equipped:—Round his middle is
- ↑ "While dead bodies were being thus dried, it was very trying to one's stomach to have divine worship on Sabbaths. We had to have it in our own house. The little room would be crammed with some forty or fifty blacks. They crowded the room as full as it would pack, and thronged about the open door and window. As they had been living and sleeping in the wurley with a putrefying body, the smell seemed to have been absorbed by their skins, and the odour which arose from my congregation was excessively unpleasant."—The Narrinyeri, by the Rev. Geo. Taplin, p. 56. This custom is probably restricted to certain districts. In many parts the body of the deceased is not touched with the naked hand, nor is any part allowed to come into contact with the bodies of the living.
