reburial of the bones is a frequent feature of Queensland funeral ceremonies, and if it is sometimes replaced by exposure on a platform, with later burial of the bones, the difference is in form rather than substance; for the platform ceremony may well have taken the place of earth burial simply as a labour-saving expedient.

The somewhat exceptional customs of the Brisbane and Maryborough tribes has recently been studied in detail by Dr. Roth,1 and they may be briefly dismissed here. The character of the rites was regulated by the sex, status, and importance of the deceased. If it was decided to eat the body, all partook without limitation; it was eaten in the case of well-known warriors, magicians, people killed in battle, or women dying suddenly in good condition; and the purpose of the rite is said to be to prevent the spirit from annoying the living and to dispose of the corpse, so that survivors were not troubled by its decomposition. The murderer was divined by hammering the bones, which were burnt later, and when they cracked at the mention of a name, it was that of the guilty person.

Exposure on a platform was the rite in the case of women, save those mentioned above and of ordinary males. The reason given was that the spirit could go hunting, cook its food, etc., without let or hindrance. When decomposition was far advanced, the body was taken down, the skull, jaw, pelvis, and limb bones removed, cleaned, and rubbed with charcoal, and the remainder burnt.

Infants and very young children were eaten whole by old women alone. Deformed people were pushed into a log. It is worthy of note that in the Maryborough tribes the object of the fire, whether the body was buried or placed on a stage, was stated to be (1) to let the spirit warm itself and (2) to keep off hostile spirits of all sorts.

This is only one among many cases which suggest that fear and not love may have been the prime motive in the original lighting of the fire.

In Central Queensland the rites are, as we have already seen, complex compared with those of more southern tribes. On Natal Downs the body is buried, then exhumed, the skull, etc., cleaned, put on a platform, and then carried by women till their mourning is over. On the Main Range old men are put on a platform, then buried, exhumed, carried, and finally the bones are deposited in a tree trunk.1

3

Further north, at Napoon on the Batavia River, the body is hung on two posts and remains there two months; then the skeleton is sewn up in bark and carried about for months; next the camp is moved and the friends of the deceased disperse to avoid the spirit of the dead man, which wanders about in the bush; finally the skeleton is burnt and only a few bones kept.2 At Somerset in the extreme north unmarried people are buried in shallow graves with four stout posts at the corners adorned with shells and dingo skulls. The hair of married persons is cut off and distributed, their eyes closed and the body put on a platform where it remains till the head comes off; it is carried in a basket for months, while the bones are rolled in bark and put on an isolated rock, where the skull eventually joins them.

On the other side of the Gulf the coastal tribes eat their dead and often hang the bones on a post in the camp; there they remain for some time till they are deposited in a hollow log, which is lodged in a tree; where it remains till it rots and falls into the water beneath. Further inland the Gnanji eat the corpse occasionally, but more often place it in a tree, the final

1 Curr, 2, 476.

2 Period. Accts., N.S., 3, 236; Rowan, Flowerhunter, 139.

resting-place of the bones being the side of a waterhole. The Umbaia bury their dead, while the main group of the central tribes expose the corpse on a tree and at the end of a twelvemonth recover the bones and bury them. South of them the Arunta practise simple burial, as we have already seen.1

North-west of the tribes just dealt with on the Daly River children are eaten by their friends; but the head is buried, for there is a ghost in it;2 for the same reason the Kwearr-ibura of the Lynd River, who bury the body, burn the head and break up the bones. On the Daly older people are buried, burned, put in trees and the bones buried.2 At Raffles Bay women and children are buried without ceremony; the adult male is wrapped in grass and hung in a tree till the bones can be collected; they are painted red and carried in a bundle till the relatives are tired of them, when they are taken to the birthplace of the deceased and buried. The belief is that when the flesh comes off the bones the spirit joins its dead tribesmen in the bush.*

At Port Darwin children up to two are eaten; from two to ten they are buried and a decorated post put up; young men or women are rolled in bark and their bodies put in trees; old people are exposed on the ground and then buried. After two months the bones are exhumed and put in a tree, and finally buried in a small hole about two feet deep.5

The salient points of Australian customs relating to the dead have now been briefly surveyed, and in the process attention has been called to various questions, such as the real significance of the fire at the grave. It seems certain that the fire is kept up in some cases for the benefit of the dead man; but it is equally certain that in others the

1 Nor. Tr., pas.

J.A.I., 14, 88.

2 T.R.S.S.A., 17, 258-9.

4

* Curr, 1, 272.

protection of the living is the object in view; if fear of the dead is more primitive than care for their comfort, we may perhaps surmise that the fire at the grave was originally for the benefit of the survivors, as it is among the Euahlayi, so well described by Mrs. Langloh Parker. This tribe heaped up Eremophila twigs and set fire to them so that dense smoke enveloped the grave. In this the mourners stood for a time, professedly to keep the spirits away and to disinfect the living from any disease that the dead might have had.1

Further east the Waw-Wyper of the Manning River had a similar practice. Burial took place at sundown, and the corpse, wrapped in sheets of bark, was carried by men. Others carried large bowls of burning fungus of strong but not unpleasant odour; a fire of the same material was kept up at the grave side by women, and its object was said to be to prevent the souls of women whose children had died before them following other children or carrying off the body before burial. Eventually the fungus fire was scattered over the grave and all hastily retired.2 Perhaps in this last rite we may see the link, if there is one, between an original practice of driving away the spirit of the dead man and that of lighting a fire at his grave for his benefit. Among the Waw-Wyper the living still fear the ghost, as is clear from their hasty retirement from the grave; but they also light the fungus fire for the benefit of the dead person.

The custom of building a hut upon the grave is connected with rites of divination and with the initiation of magicians, but seems in many cases to be independent of both these ideas, and to fulfil a function in the mourning ceremonies. On the Darling it is common for the widow to sit in the grave hut with her kopai cap, but whether the hut is always inhabited is not clear. The custom of building a hut on the grave is found in Queensland 1

on the Herbert River;1 in the Mackay district the bones are ultimately placed in a hut.2 The main area, however, in which this custom is observed is the south-east. It is practised north of Sydney, on the Lower Murray, on the upper waters of the same river, in Gippsland, on the London River, and possibly among the Wathi-Wathi. Whatever the precise interpretation of the custom, it points to care for the dead, or at least absence of fear of them.

Cannibalism, as we have seen, is sometimes inspired by fear, and Roth says that he cannot discover that the desire to acquire the qualities of the deceased is anywhere the object of the ceremony. Howitt, however, states in positive terms that the young men of the Kuinmurbura would stand beneath the burial stage of a great warrior, and stand underneath in order to let the products of decomposition fall upon them and transfer to them some of the strength and fighting power of the dead man.*

We have already seen that a limited form of cannibalism is practised by the Dieri, among whom certain relatives eat the fat of the deceased; the ostensible reason for this rite is to make the living forget the dead, but we may surmise that it was originally intended as a protection against the spirit of the dead, as in the Queensland case cited by Roth. This is borne out by the fact that in the Bellenden Ker district of Queensland, where the dead are dried over a slow fire, the heads of the mourners are anointed with the fat that drips from the body. The corpse is kept nine months, after which the mourners' hair is cut and burned in the fire, after which the mourning ceased.5

1 Howitt, 474.

2 Queenslander, March 18, 1876.

Howitt, 452, 465; J.A.I., 13, 136; Sturt, Exped., 2, 74; Resident, Glimpses, 202; Mitchell, E. Aust., 2, 87, 105, etc.

4 Howitt, 471.