Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central Australia And Overland From Adelaide To King George's Sound In The Years 1840-1: Sent By The Colonists Of South Australia By Eyre, Edward John
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The
Burial Rites In Some Tribes Assimilate To Those Practised Near Adelaide;
In Others I Have Witnessed The Following Ceremony:
- The grave being dug,
the body was laid out near it, on a triangular bier (birri), stretched
straight on
The back, enveloped in cloths and skins, rolled round and
corded close, and with the head to the eastward; around the bier were
many women, relations of the deceased, wailing and lamenting bitterly,
and lacerating their thighs, backs, and breasts, with shells or flint,
until the blood flowed copiously from the gashes. The males of the tribe
were standing around in a circle, with their weapons in their hands, and
the stranger tribes near them, in a similar position, imparting to the
whole a solemn and military kind of appearance. After this had continued
for some time, the male relatives closed in around the bier, the mourning
women renewed their lamentations in a louder tone, and two male relatives
stepped up to the bier, and stood across the body, one at the head, and
one at the foot, facing each other.
Having cut above the abdomen the strings binding the cloths which were
wound round the body, they proceeded to cut a slit of about ten inches
long, through the swathing cloths above the belly; through this opening,
they removed the arms, which appeared to have been crossed there, laying
them down by the sides, inside the wrappings (for no part was unwound);
having warmed a handful of green boughs over a fire, they thrust them in
through the opening in the cloths, upon the naked belly of the corpse;
after a little while these were removed, and one of their sorcerers made
an incision of about eight inches long in the abdomen.
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