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.
