and . . . . with great regularity. They were both exactly of the same length, but differed in breadth and height. They were not formed altogether of small stones from the rock on which they stood, but many were portions of very distant rocks, which must have been brought by human labor, for their angles were as sharp as the day they were broken off; there were also the remains of many and different kinds of sea-shells in the heap we opened. My own opinion concerning these heaps of stones had been that they were tombs; and this opinion remains unaltered, though we found no bones in the mound, only a great deal of fine mould, having a damp, dank smell. The antiquity of the central part of the one we opened appeared to be very great—I should say two or three hundred years; but the stones above were much more modern, the outer ones having been recently placed; this was also the case with the other heap. Can this be regarded by the natives as a holy spot?"[1]
"On the Murray River singular-looking places are found sometimes, made by the natives by piling small stones close together upon their ends in the ground, . . . . and projecting four or five inches above the ground. The whole length of the place thus enclosed by one which I examined was eleven yards: at the broad end it was two yards wide, at the narrow end one. The position of this singular-looking place was a clear space on the slope of a hill, the narrow end being the lowest, on in the direction of the river. Inside the line of stones the ground was smoothed and somewhat hollowed. The natives called it Mooyumbuck, and said it was a place for disenchanting an individual afflicted with boils."[2]
It is now very difficult to obtain information from the natives respecting these erections.
Cannibalism.
The natives of Australia are, under some circumstances, guilty of cannibalism. In another part of this work it has been shown, on the authority of Mr. Samuel Bennett, that during the Bunya-bunya season, strangers who visit the Bunya-bunya forest for the sake of the fruit are impelled by a craving for flesh to kill one of their number and eat him. Children are killed and eaten; and the fat of the bodies of those who have been killed in battle, as well as of those who have died a natural death, is occasionally swallowed. Hull says that the natives eat human flesh, and offer human victims as sacrifices.[3] Mundy appears to have had no doubt of the existence of cannibalism in New South Wales, and he makes mention of the despatch of Sir George Gipps (Parliamentary Blue Book, 1844) in which is given an account of "perhaps one of the most ferocious acts of cannibalism on record."[4]
Mr. Angas, quoted by Wood, gives an example of cannibalism, as occurring in New South Wales:—"A lad had died, and his body was taken by several
- ↑ North-West and Western Australia, vol. I., p. 227.
- ↑ Journals of Expeditions of Discovery, by Eyre, vol. II., p. 365.
- ↑ Remarks on the probable Origin and Antiquity of the Aboriginal Natives of New South Wales, by a Colonial Magistrate, 1846, p. 18.
- ↑ Our Antipodes, by Lieut.-Col. Mundy, 1857, p. 48.
