tied to the tuft on the head of the second, and so on to the last. Each man had a piece of bark twelve inches long and four wide in each hand. The two remaining actors were not tied to any one, and each walked nearly bent double by the weight of supposititious years, resting on a staff—this indicating a great age and, as they represented two medicine-men, also great magical powers.
By this time the grave was completed, and leaves having been laid on the bottom as a couch, Yibai stretched himself out on them with a rolled-up blanket under his head, as if he were a dead man. In his two hands, which were crossed on his chest, he held the stem of a young Geebung tree,[1] which had been pulled up by the roots, and now stood planted on his chest several feet above the level of the ground. A light covering of dead sticks filled the grave, and on them were scattered dead leaves and grass, artistically levelled off with the ground, by sticking little tufts of grass, small plants and such like, to make the illusion complete.
All being now ready, the novices were led by their Kabos and placed alongside the grave, and the Wolgal singer perched himself on the bole of a fallen tree close by the head of the grave, and commenced a melancholy but well-marked song, called the "Song of Yibai."[2]
The words of this song are, as is often the case, merely suggestive of its meaning rather than descriptive of it, being the repetition of the words Burrin-burrin Yibai, that is, Stringy-bark Yibai. This song is said to have been handed down by their fathers at these ceremonies, and further, that it refers to the incantation by the medicine-men. It refers to Malian, that is eagle-hawk, in connection with Yibai, and Daramulun is also Malian. In this aspect the burial of the man Yibai has a new significance, he being of the sub-class Yibai and of the totem Malian.
To the slow, plaintive, but well-marked air of this song the actors began to move forward, winding among the trees, logs, and rocks. In accord with the time of the song the
