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| FIG. 41. |
On the death of Bungeleen (an Aboriginal native who was tolerably well educated, and was for some time under the care of the late Mr. Wm. Thomas, the Protector of Aborigines), one of the men of the Yarra tribe was requested to make a suitable design for a tombstone to be placed over his grave; and he furnished accordingly the following picture. It is carved in wood.—(Fig. 41.) The artist is now dead; and it is impossible to give an explanation of the picture. Mr. John Green says that the Aborigines of the Yarra do not know what meaning he attached to the several figures; but they suppose that the men represented in the upper part of the drawing are friends who have been appointed to investigate the cause of the death of Bungeleen; the figures of the birds and animals (emus, lizard, wombat (?), and kangaroos) indicate that he did not die for lack of food; and the strange—somewhat obscure—forms below the hollow band are those of Mooroops, or spirits who have caused the death of the Aboriginal by their wicked enchantments. The carving is excellent; and the engraving accurately represents the figures.[1]
The natives, as already stated, frequently carved figures of some kind on the trees growing near the graves of deceased warriors. Oxley gives a drawing, from which it appears that a portion of the bark was first removed from the trees and that the designs were cut in the wood. These would last for a long period.
They also ornamented the places of burial by cutting figures in the turf; and when the priests exercised some of their rites, spaces were cleared, and designs made by removing the grass and cutting into the soil.
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| FIG. 42. |
The inner sides of the opossum rugs used by the natives were usually ornamented. They inscribed lines on the skins, and darkened them with powdered charcoal and fat, or with other colors. The figures were the same as those on their weapons, namely, the herring-bone, chevron, and saltier, with representations of animals in outline. In many examples a pattern was chosen and fairly worked out. When an animal was figured, it was common, as in the drawings I have given, to fill in the space around it with lines —(Fig- 42). This style of ornamentation is effective. When a figure of some bird or beast is carved in wood—as on shields or throwing-sticks—it is, in some specimens, in relief, the surrounding lines being cut on a somewhat lower plane; but most often it is cut out to the depth of the eighth of an inch, the surrounding lines
- ↑ The tomb-board of Wabojeeg, a celebrated war chief, who died on Lake Superior in 1793, resembles that of Bungeleen. It is described in Sir John Lubbock's work on The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man, 1870, p. 35.
