The burial and mourning ceremonies, if any, attendant upon the death of a person, depend largely upon the tribe, the age, and the social standing or status of the individual concerned. Old people who have become “silly” (i.e. childish), and who in consequence do not take an active part in any of the tribal functions or ceremonies, are never honoured with a big funeral, but are quietly buried in the ground. The reason for this is that the natives believe that the greater share of any personal charms and talents possessed by the senile frame have already migrated to the eternal home of the spirit. As a matter of fact, the old person’s spirit has itself partly quitted the body and whiles for the most time in the great beyond. For precisely the same reason, it often happens that a tribe, when undergoing hardship and privation brought about by drought, necessitating perhaps long marches under the most trying conditions, knocks an old and decrepit person on the head, just as an act of charity in order to spare the lingering soul the tortures, which can be more readily borne by the younger members. These ideas exist all over Australia.

When infants die, they are kept or carried around by the mothers, individual or tribal, for a while in a food-carrier, and then buried without any demonstration. The extinct Adelaide tribes required of the women to carry their dead children about with them on their backs until the bodies were shrivelled up and mummified. The women alone attended to the burial of the child when eventually it was assigned to a tree or the ground.

But at the demise of a person in the prime of his or her life, and of one who has been a recognized power in life, the case is vastly different. Both before and after the “burial” of the corpus, a lengthy ceremony is performed, during which all sorts of painful mutilations are inflicted amongst the bereaved relatives, amidst the accompaniment of weird chants and horribly uncanny wails. Before proceeding with the discussion of the attendant ceremonies, however, we shall give an outline of the different methods adopted in Australia for the disposal of the dead.

Cremation is nowhere practised for the simple reason that the destruction of the bony skeleton would debar the spirit from re-entering a terrestrial existence.

The spirit is regarded as the indestructible, or really immortal, quantity of a man’s existence; and it is intimately associated with the skeleton. The natives tender, as an analogy, the big larva of the Cossus or “witchedy,” which lies buried in the bark of a gum tree. As a result of its ordinary metamorphosis, the moth appears and flies away, leaving the empty shell or, as the natives call it, the “skeleton” of the “dead” grub behind. It is a common belief on the north coast that the spirit of a dead person returns from the sky by means of a shooting star, and when it reaches the earth, it immediately looks around for its old skeleton. For this reason the relatives of a dead man carefully preserve the skeletal remains, carry them around for a while, and finally store them in a cave.

Stillborn children are usually burnt in a blazing fire since they are regarded as being possessed of the evil spirit, which was the cause of the death.

The simplest method universally adopted, either alone or in conjunction with other procedures, is interment.

Most of the central tribes, like the Dieri, Aluridja, Yantowannta, Ngameni, Wongapitcha, Kukata, and others, bury their dead, whilst the northern and southern tribes place the corpse upon a platform, which they construct upon the boughs of a tree or upon a special set of upright poles. The Ilyauarra formerly used to practise tree-burial, but nowadays interment is generally in vogue.

A large, oblong hole, from two to five feet deep, is dug in the ground to receive the body, which has previously been wrapped in sheets of bark, skins, or nowadays blankets. Two or three men jump into the hole and take the corpse out of the hands of other men, who are kneeling at the edge of the grave, and carefully lower it in a horizontal position to the bottom of the excavation. The body is made to lie upon the back, and the head is turned to face the camp last occupied by the deceased, or in the direction of the supposed invisible abode of the spirit, which occupied the mortal frame about to be consigned to the earth. The Arunndta quite occasionally place the body in a natural sitting position. The Larrekiya, when burying an aged person, place the body in a recumbent position, usually lying on its right side, with the legs tucked up against the trunk and the head reposing upon the hands, the position reminding one of that of a fœtus in utero.

The body is covered with layers of grass, small sticks, and sheets of bark, when the earth is scraped back into the hole. But very often a small passage is left open at the side of the grave, by means of which the spirit may leave or return to the human shell (i.e. the skeleton) whenever it wishes.

The place of sepulture is marked in a variety of ways. In many cases only a low mound is erected over the spot, which in course of time is washed away and finally leaves a shallow depression.

The early south-eastern (Victorian) and certain central tribes place the personal belongings, such as spear and spear-thrower in the case of a man, and yam-stick and cooleman in the case of a woman, upon the mound, much after the fashion of a modern tombstone. The now fast-vanishing people of the Flinders Ranges clear a space around the mound, and construct a shelter of stones and brushwood at the head end. They cover the corpse with a layer of foliage and branches, over which they place a number of slabs of slate. Finally a mound is erected over the site.

The Adelaide and Encounter Bay tribes built wurleys or brushwood shelters over the mound to serve the spirit of the dead native as a resting place.

In the Mulluk Mulluk, when a man dies outside his own country, he is buried immediately. A circular space of ground is cleared, in the centre of which the grave is dug. After interment, the earth is thrown back into the hole and a mound raised, which is covered with sheets of paper-bark. The bark is kept in place by three or four flexible wands, stuck into the ground at their ends, but closely against the mound, transversely to its length. A number of flat stones are laid along the border of the grave and one or two upon the mound.

In the Northern Kimberleys of Western Australia, when an unauthorized trespasser is killed by the local tribes, the body is placed into a cavity scooped out of an anthill, and covered up. In a few hours, the termites rebuild the defective portion of the hill, and the presence of a corpse is not suspected by an avenging party, even though it be close on the heels of the murderers.

The Dieri, in the Lake Eyre district of central Australia, dispense with the mound, but in its place they lay a number of heavy saplings longitudinally across the grave. Their eastern neighbours, the Yantowannta, expand this method by piling up an exceptionally large mound, which they cover with a stout meshwork of stakes, branches, and brushwood lying closely against the earth (Plate XXV, 1 and 2).

One of the most elaborate methods is that in vogue on Melville and Bathurst Islands. The ground immediately encompassing the grave is cleared, for a radius of half a chain or more, and quantities of clean soil thrown upon it to elevate the space as a whole. The surface is then sprinkled with ashes and shell debris. The mound stands in the centre of this space, and is surrounded by a number of artistically decorated posts of hard and heavy wood, or occasionally of a lighter fibrous variety resembling that of a palm. Each of the posts bears a distinctive design drawn in ochre upon it; several of the series in addition have the top end carved into simple or complicated knobs; occasionally a square hole is cut right through the post, about a foot from the top, leaving only a small, vertical strip of wood at each side to support the knob (Fig. 14). The designs are drawn in red, yellow, white, and black, and represent human, animal, emblematical, and nondescript forms.

The Larrekiya erect a sort of sign-post, at some distance from the grave, consisting of an upright pole, to the top of which a bundle of grass is fixed. A cross-piece is tied beneath the grass, which projects unequally at the sides and carries an additional bundle at each extremity. The structure resembles a scarecrow with outstretched arms, the longer of which has a small rod inserted into the bundle of grass to indicate the direction of the grave. Suspended from the other arm, a few feathers or light pieces of bark are allowed to sway in the wind and thus serve to attract the attention of any passers-by.

When the body is to be placed upon a platform, it is carried, at the conclusion of the preliminary mourning ceremonies, shoulder high by the bereaved relatives to the place previously prepared for the reception of the corpse. A couple of the men climb upon the platform and take charge of the body, which is handed to them by those remaining below. They carefully place it in position, and lay a few branches over it, after which they again descend to join the mourners. The platform is constructed of boughs and bark, which are spread between the forks of a tree or upon specially erected pillars of wood.

The Adelaide tribe used to tie the bodies of the dead into a sitting position, with the legs and arms drawn up closely against the chest, and in that position kept them in the scorching sun until the tissues were thoroughly dried around the skeleton; then the mummy was placed in the branches of a tree, usually a casuarina or a ti-tree. Along the reaches of the River Murray near its mouth, the mummification of the corpse was accelerated by placing it upon a platform and smoking it from a big fire, which was kept burning underneath; all orifices in the body were previously closed up. When the epidermis peeled off, the whole surface of the corpse was thickly bedaubed with a mixture of red ochre and grease, which had the consistency of an ordinary oil-paint. A similar mummification process is adopted by certain of the coastal tribes of north-eastern Queensland.

The Larrekiya, Wogait, and other northern tribes smear red ochre all over the surface of the corpse, prior to placing it aloft, in much the same manner as they do when going to battle. The mourners, moreover, rub some of the deceased’s fat over their bodies. When eventually all the soft parts have been removed from the skeleton by birds of prey, and by natural processes of decomposition, the relatives take the radius from the left arm, which they carry away with them. The remaining bones are collected and wrapped up in paperbark, and the parcel buried.

In the Northern Kimberleys of Western Australia, the relatives wait until the body has so far decomposed that it begins to drip, at which stage they place a number of pebbles or other articles either in a row or in a circle underneath the platform. Each pebble represents a person who is considered as a likely cause of the death they are bemoaning. Periodical inspections are made of the place, and notice is taken of the drops which have fallen from the corpse. Should it so happen that the wind has blown them in the direction of any one particular stone, which has thereby been moistened, the person represented by that pebble is looked upon as the one responsible for the fellow’s death; a resolution is forthwith carried to “bone” him to death. At the same time the visitors keep a vigilant lookout for any tracks near the grave, which might inform them of the presence of a spirit nearby. Like the Northern Territory tribes they, too, later collect the bones of the deceased and wrap them up in paperbark. These parcels, together with the skull, are deposited in the crevices of rocks outcropping within their haunts, or they are stuck away in a cave, if such be available.

Great is the hullabaloo in a camp when a person of importance breathes his last. Moans and deep sobbing notes are followed by loud yells and spasms of barbarous shrieks, which it is difficult to believe are human; and the yelping hordes of dogs, which are found in every camp, in no small way intensify the din. After a while the pandemonium settles down to a more orderly wailing, although every now and then there might be a spontaneous outburst of the heart-rending yelling again, which can only be likened to a long-drawn canine or, more nearly, a dingo-like howl. The note is taken up by all members of the little community; and the moment the noise is heard by anybody strolling or hunting in the environment he, without deliberation, hastens back to camp to join in the wailing. The men sit with their knees drawn up and their arms thrown around them, covering their faces whilst they are sobbing. The women throw themselves upon the ground, or over the body of the departed, in utter despair; they are later joined by the men. Every now and then the lubras rise, and, seizing a sharp stick with both their hands, they cut deep gashes into the crown of their heads. Then, as the blood pours down over their faces and bodies, the wailing is accentuated with additional vehemence. At times some terrible wounds are inflicted during this part of the obsequies. The widow often cuts a long, median gash right along the scalp. The men, on the other hand, flourish their big stone knives, with which they hack their bodies in a revolting manner. In the Katherine River district, the nearest relatives on the male side not infrequently cut their thighs in such a way that almost the entire mass of muscles on the extensor side is severed, and the man makes himself hors de combat. A general mêlée now ensues, during which women deface themselves and each other without restraint, the places of predilection being the head and back. Each mourner submits to the mutilation voluntarily and without flinching. The women, too, make free use of their nulla-nullas, with which they crack each other over the head. But a short while after they will seat themselves in groups about the body, with their arms tenderly thrown around each other, crying bitterly.

Repeatedly I have been present when sad or distressing news has unexpectedly come to hand, or when one of the tribe meets with a painful accident which may be considered fatal, and have noticed with what amount of undisguised sympathy such are received on the part of the women-folk. On one occasion I remember a young gin falling from a high cliff on the Finke River and sustaining a concussion of the brain. As she lay unconscious on the ground, all other women present at the time tore out great quantities of hair from their scalps, and then threw themselves into some spiny tussocks of porcupine grass which grew close-by. The poisonous sting of the porcupine grass is very painful, even when only one enters the skin; but the agony produced by a large number piercing the naked body must be excruciating.

The Larrekiya men lacerate their upper arms and thighs with stone knives, and cut their foreheads with the embedded flints of any handy implements. Both men and women cover their naked bodies with ashes and pipeclay, and, after the preliminary uproar has calmed down somewhat, the females start a doleful chant which sounds something like: “Nge-e-u, hö-hö-un-un.” To this the men respond with long-drawn monotones resembling: “He-e-ö, he-e-ö, he-e-ö,” the “n” and “un” above, and the “ö” below, sounding like sobs.

The chanting is kept up all the time the corpse is “lying in state,” if one be permitted to make use of this phrase in connection with a primitive burial ceremony. Even whilst the body is being conveyed upon the shoulders of the aboriginal pall-bearers, the wailing continues in a systematic manner.

I remember once attending a native funeral at Brocks’ Creek in the Northern Territory, when a gin had died who came from a far-distant tribe beyond the Victoria River. Being a stranger, the local tribal honours could not be bestowed upon her remains, but the local natives, who volunteered to bury her, could not let the opportunity pass without singing in a mournful strain as they carried her to rest. The gin’s dialect was unknown, and the local tribe had been in the habit of conversing with her in ordinary “pidgin English.” Consequently they concocted a little refrain of their own to suit the occasion. It ran “Poor beggar Jinny, him bin die,” and was rendered in a sing-song style, like a decimal repeater, throughout the ceremony.

Everywhere in Australia it is the custom among the indigenous people never to mention the name of the person whose death is being lamented. This rule is so far-reaching that should there be more than one tribesman holding the same name, the one surviving his namesake immediately changes his appellation. If, too, the name of the dead one happened to be that of an animal or place, a new word is immediately introduced in the vocabulary of the tribe in place of the former. Thus allusion to the dead man’s name is entirely avoided. The reason for this strange custom is that the tribespeople want the spirit of the departed not to be molested; by calling aloud the name of one who has gone beyond, the spirit might be persuaded to come back and haunt the camp; the natives are in constant dread of this. On the other hand, by not addressing the spirit, there is no reason for it to leave the happy ancestral grounds, in which it can consort with all its kin long-departed.

For much the same reason, the hut or wurley of the dead person is immediately destroyed by the relatives of the dead man; if the habitation is allowed to stand, the spirit of the dead will endeavour to come back and occupy it. The natives would be continually encountering the ghost, if not actually then certainly in their imagination, and the fear of such a possibility would make their existence intolerable. Most of the tribes, moreover, so soon as they have destroyed the dead man’s wurley, instantly leave the district and select another camping site, well removed from the latter. The only exception to this general rule is the Adelaide tribe who, as previously mentioned, used to build a special bark hut over the grave for the spirit to dwell in.

The person who fares worst is a widow. To begin with, she is required to absent herself and live apart from the rest of the people in a small humpy of her own; and she is not allowed to eat anything during the term of the mourning ceremonies. Quite apart from the general avoidance of mentioning the deceased’s name, a widow is positively forbidden to speak to anyone for a term of from a week or two to several months. During all that time, she must observe the strictest rules of tribal mourning; for, if she does not, the spirit will see that her late husband’s memory is not sufficiently revered, and it will starve the woman to death.

Directly after the death of her husband, a Yantowannta woman must cut off her hair, short to the scalp, and burn it. In its place, she applies a thick coating of pipeclay paste, which is periodically added to if there be a tendency for it to crumble away. In addition, she covers most of her face with a similar paste which adheres to the skin like a mask. Vide Plate XXVI, 2.

The early Murray River tribes made a skull-cap of burned gypsum or lime, about three inches thick, which the widows had to wear during the term of mourning. These encumbrances weighed up to sixteen pounds. The hair was generally removed previously by singeing it with hot ashes.

In addition the relict has to regularly cover her body and face with white ashes. In the Daly Waters district, whenever she pays a visit to her late husband’s burial place, she will submit herself to the agony of re-opening the wound in her scalp, until it bleeds profusely, to prove how deep her sorrow is.

The Aluridja widows do not cut their hair short, but smear pipe-clay paste and ashes thickly over the scalp, intimately mixing it with the woolly growth. Often the hair is worked up into a large number of locks or strands, round which the white paste is moulded in such a way that the head is surrounded by an array of pendant, cylindrical masses resembling so many candles (Plate XXVI, 1).

A woman, upon the decease of her husband, becomes the property of her late partner’s brother; if there are more than one brother surviving, she falls to the senior among them. In the case of no brothers remaining or existing, she is claimed by the dead husband’s nearest (male) tribal relative. The law prevails practically all over the Southern Continent. It is not until she is actually received by her new husband that the woman is permitted to speak to anyone. This usually ends the first period of mourning, so far as the gin is concerned, and she returns to live with the others in the main camp; but in most cases she will continue to smear pipe-clay over her scalp for some time longer.

An Arunndta woman who survives three tribal husbands is not required by law to marry again, and she is, consequently, left unmolested.

The second period of public mourning is a comparatively short one; it is begun by collecting the dead man’s bones from the tree or platform. In nearly every case the bulk of the bones are packed in sheets of paperbark and hidden or buried. In the north-central and north-western districts, the parcels are either hidden in a cave, buried in an anthill, or stuck into the fork of a dead tree. The cranium is often smashed to pieces or the facial skeleton broken away from the skull-roof. In the old Narrinyerri and certain tribes of the Adelaide plains the calvarium was used as a drinking vessel; a handle was attached by fastening a piece of strong fur-string to the occiput through the foramen magnum, on the one side, and to the frontal portion, after breaking a passage through the orbital cavities, on the other. Many tribes besmear the skulls with red ochre before assigning them to their last resting place. In the Northern Kimberleys some of the sepulchral caves are so crowded with skulls, arranged in perfect order, that one is reminded of the classical catacombs.

The women are not present when the bones are collected, but, remaining in camp, they start to wail afresh, and even resort to further mutilating the body. When the men return, carrying with them the radius of the dead man, a ceremony is conducted, in which both sexes participate. The women, including the widow, now discard the white cover of pipe-clay and ashes; and in its place they decorate their bodies with red and yellow ochre, and occasionally with charcoal. These colours are applied in vertical bands or lines over the chest and back; whilst across the shoulders there are usually a few horizontal lines. The men have more elaborate designs worked over their chests and backs with ochre and kaolin. After the ceremony is over, the radius is either buried or claimed by the deceased’s brother, who uses it as a pointing-bone, it playing a particularly important role during any expedition, which may be undertaken against the tribe suspected of foul play in connection with his relative’s death.