branches of trees, some in trenches lined and covered with flat stones, and some are burnt.
When death is imminent, it is usual to remove the dying man to a spot at some little distance from his miam, and his relatives and friends prepare all that is needful for his interment even before dissolution. Much attention is shown to him, and when finally he breathes his last breath, arrangements are made for the disposal of the body. The facts which are given in this volume show that savages are not indifferent to the solemn events which amongst civilized peoples give occasion for pageantry. The natives are serious and decorous around the graves of their warriors; and the mourners cut themselves and lament after the manner of the ancients.
The body is not placed at fall length in the grave. The grave is usually four or five feet in length; and the corpse is bent and doubled so as to admit of its being laid in a small space. A warrior is usually wrapped in his opossum rug, tied tightly, and buried with his weapons and all his worldly possessions. Amongst the southern tribes of Victoria the body was not touched by hands. It was so moved and carried as to prevent the contact of the living with the corpse, and the utmost care was taken in interring it to protect every part of it with a covering. Amongst the people of the west and elsewhere no such feeling seems to have prevailed; the body was sewn up, it was greased and rubbed with red-ochre, and handled apparently without repugnance.
Sometimes a long speech is delivered over the grave by some man of consideration in the tribe. Mr. Bridgman, of Mackay in Queensland, states in a letter to me that on one occasion he heard a funeral oration delivered over the grave of a man who had been a great warrior which lasted more than an hour. The corpse was borne on the shoulders of two men, who stood at the edge of the grave. During the discourse he observed that the orator spoke to the deceased as if he were still living and could hear his words. Burial in the district in which Mr. Bridgman lives is only a formal ceremony, and not an absolute disposal of the remains. After lying in the ground for three months or more, the body is disinterred, the bones are cleaned, and packed in a roll of pliable bark, the outside of which is painted and ornamented with strings of beads and the like. This, which is called Ngobera, is kept in the camp with the living. If a stranger who has known the deceased comes to the camp, the Ngobera is brought out towards evening, and he and some of the near relations of the dead person sit down by it, and wail and cut themselves for half an hour. Then it is handed to the stranger, who takes it with him and sleeps by the side of it, returning it in the morning to its proper custodian. Women and children who die, Mr. Bridgman says, are usually burnt.
It is the firm belief of the natives that no man dies but by witchcraft. Some sorcerer in a neighbouring tribe has compassed his death, they say, and they seek to discover in what direction their warriors shall go to avenge the murder. Usually they scrape up the earth around the dead body in order to find the track of some worm or insect, sometimes they watch the movements of a lizard, and again they will wait until cracks appear in the damp clay that covers the grave. Sooner or later the wise man of the tribe determines in what direction
