Also an American custom. - Catlin, vol. i. p. 90. Lacerating the
flesh at death was expressly forbidden in the Jewish dispensation. It is
practised also in New Zealand. - Vide Dieffenbach.]
A relative of the deceased now jumped up, with his weapons, violently
excited, and apparently with the intention of spearing some one; but he
was at once restrained by his friends, who informed me that the
investigation had satisfied them that the man had not died through the
agency of sorcery; if he had, it is imagined that a cicatrice would have
been found upon the omentum. Two men now got into the grave, spread a
cloth in the bottom, and over that green boughs. Other natives turned the
bier round, and lifting up the body, gave it to the two in the grave to
lay in its proper position, which was quite horizontal, and with the head
to the west [Note 82 at end of para.], the grave being dug east and west:
green boughs were now thrown thickly into it, and earth was pushed in by
the bystanders with their feet, until a mound had been raised some height
above the ground. All was now over, and the natives began to disperse,
upon which the wild and piercing wail of the mourners became redoubled.
[Note 82: This appears to be a very general custom, and to be of Eastern
origin. Catlin describes it as always being attended to at the disposal
of the dead by the American Indians. In South Africa, however, Moffat
states (p. 307), "that the corpse is put exactly facing the north."]
Upon the mounds, or tumuli, over the graves, huts of bark, or boughs, are
generally erected to shelter the dead from the rain; they are also
frequently wound round with netting. Many graves being usually in one
vicinity, and an elevated dry place being selected, the cemeteries often
present a picturesque appearance. Graves are frequently visited by the
women at intervals, for some months, and at such times the wail is
renewed, and their bodies lacerated as at the interment. At Boga Lake, I
saw a grave with a very neat hut of reeds made over it, surmounted by
netting, and having a long curious serpentine double trench, of a few
inches deep, surrounding it; possibly it might have been the burial place
of the native mentioned by Major Mitchell, as having been shot by his
black, Piper, at that lake.
Nets, but not implements, are sometimes buried with the natives; nor do
the survivors ever like to use a net that has belonged to a man who is
dead.
There are not any ceremonies attending the burial of young children; and
the male relatives often neglect to attend at all, leaving it altogether
to the women.
The natives have not much dread of going near to graves, and care little
for keeping them in order, or preventing the bones of their friends from
being scattered on the surface of the earth.
I have frequently seen them handling them, or kicking them with the foot
with great indifference. On one occasion when out with an old native
looking for horses before it was daylight, I came to a grave of no very
old date, and where the boughs and bushes built over in the form of a hut
were still remaining undisturbed; the weather was extremely cold, and the
old man did not hesitate to ask me to pull down the boughs to make a
fire, but would not do it himself.
On another occasion when a poor old woman had been deserted by the
natives of Moorunde, and died a few days after being brought up to the
station, I had great difficulty in getting the other natives to bury her,
they would on no account touch the body; but after digging a hole, they
got a long wiry branch of a tree, and one man taking hold of each end
they bent the middle round the old woman's neck, and thus dragged her
along the ground and threw her into the pit like a dog, all the time
violently and continually spitting out in every direction to ward off, as
they said, the infection.
[Note 83: "He tied a thong to her leg, avoiding the touch of that form
which gave him birth, dragged the corpse to some bushes, and left the
thong because it had been in contact with the body of his mother."
- Moffat's South Africa, p. 306.]
Sometimes it happens that when a death occurs, the nearest grown up male
relative, whose duty it would be to take the principal part in the
ceremonies, or inflict punishment if evil agency is suspected to have
caused the death, may be absent. In this case he would have to discharge
these duties upon the first occasion of his meeting with the supposed
aggressors. The following is an instance which I witnessed.
A relative of Tenberry, one of the principal natives of the Murray, had
died when he was absent, and the son of the deceased was too young to
revenge the sorcery which it was imagined had caused his father's death,
it therefore became Tenberry's duty to do this upon the first occasion
that offered. I was with him when the parties first came into the
neighbourhood, and I witnessed the proceedings. Notice having been sent
by Tenberry the evening before, to warn them to be ready, I accompanied
him early in the morning towards the encampment of the natives, situated
in a hollow near the water; when within about a hundred yards we saw from
the rise all the natives seated below us in the valley. Tenberry now
halted, and having taken a hasty survey of the group hung down his head
upon his breast and raised a low mournful lamentation; after a time it
ceased, and the wail was at once replied to and continued by women's
voices in the camp:
