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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In Others, Singular Shaped Spaces Are Inclosed, By Serpentine Trenches, A
Few Inches Deep, But For What Purpose I Know Not, Unless Graves Have
Formerly Existed There.
Another practice of the natives, when travelling from one place to
another, is to put stones up in the
Trees they pass, at different heights
from the ground, to indicate the height of the sun when they passed.
Other natives following, are thus made aware of the hour of the day when
their friends passed particular points. Captain Grey found the same
custom in Western Australia; vol. i. p. 113, he says: -
"I this day again remarked a circumstance, which had before this period
elicited my attention, which was, that we occasionally found fixed on the
boughs of trees, at a considerable height from the ground, pieces of
sandstone, nearly circular in form, about an inch and a half in
thickness, and from four to five in diameter, so that they resembled
small mill-stones. What was the object of thus fashioning, and placing
these stones, I never could conceive, for they are generally in the least
remarkable spots. They cannot point out burial places, for I have made
such minute searches, that in such case I must have found some of the
bones; neither can they indicate any peculiar route through the country,
for two never occur near one another."
The power of sorcery appears always to belong, in a degree, to the aged,
but it is assumed often by the middle aged men.
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