R. Salvado, Mémoires historiques sur l' Australie (Paris, 1854), p. 261; Missions Catholiques, x. (1878) p. 247. For more evidence as to the lighting of fires for this purpose see A. W. Howitt, op. cit. pp. 455, 470.
Footnote 200: (return)
A. Oldfield, "The Aborigines of Australia," Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, New Series, iii. (1865) p. 245.
Footnote 201: (return)
A. W. Howitt, op. cit. p. 455.
Footnote 202: (return)
J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, pp. 50 sq.
Footnote 203: (return)
J. Dawson, op. cit. p. 63.
Footnote 204: (return)
A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 458.
Footnote 205: (return)
A. W. Howitt, op. cit. p. 470.
Footnote 206: (return)
A. W. Howitt, op. cit. pp. 461 sq.
Footnote 207: (return)
A. W. Howitt, op. cit. p. 464.
Footnote 208: (return)
A. W. Howitt, op. cit. p. 464.
Footnote 209: (return)
R. Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, i. 104.
Footnote 210: (return)
P. Beveridge, "Of the Aborigines Inhabiting the Great Lacustrine and Riverine Depression of the Lower Murray, Lower Murrumbidgee, Lower Lachlan, and Lower Darling," Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, xvii. (1883) p. 29.
Footnote 211: (return)
A. Oldfield, "The Aborigines of Australia," Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, New Series, iii. (1865) p. 245.
Footnote 212: (return)
W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 164.
Footnote 213: (return)
Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 466, 497 sq., 538 sq. See above, p. 138.
Footnote 214: (return)
Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 524.
Footnote 215: (return)
F. Bonney, "On some Customs of the Aborigines of the River Darling, New South Wales," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xiii. (1884) p. 135.
LECTURE VII
THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA (concluded)
Attention to the comfort of the dead. Huts erected on graves for the use of the ghosts.
In the last lecture I shewed that in the maritime regions of Australia, where the conditions of life are more favourable than in the Central deserts, we may detect the germs of a worship of the dead in certain attentions which the living pay to the spirits of the departed, for example by kindling fires on the grave for the ghost to warm himself at, by leaving food and water for him to eat and drink, and by depositing his weapons and other property in the tomb for his use in the life after death. Another mark of respect shewn to the dead is the custom of erecting a hut on the grave for the accommodation of the ghost. Thus among the tribes of South Australia we are told that "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."216 Again, in Western Australia a small hut of rushes, grass, and so forth is said to have been set up by the natives over the grave.217 Among the tribes of the Lower Murray, Lower Lachlan, and Lower Darling rivers, when a person died who had been highly esteemed in life, a neat hut was erected over his grave so as to cover it entirely. The hut was of oval shape, about five feet high, and roofed with thatch, which was firmly tied to the framework by cord many hundreds of yards in length. Sometimes the whole hut was enveloped in a net. At the eastern end of the hut a small opening was left just large enough to allow a full-grown man to creep in, and the floor was covered with grass, which was renewed from time to time as it became withered. Each of these graves was enclosed by a fence of brushwood forming a diamond-shaped enclosure, within which the tomb stood exactly in the middle. All the grass within the fence was neatly shaved off and the ground swept quite clean. Sepulchres of this sort were kept up for two or three years, after which they were allowed to fall into disrepair, and when a few more years had gone by the very sites of them were forgotten.218 The intention of erecting huts on graves is not mentioned in these cases, but on analogy we may conjecture that they are intended for the convenience and comfort of the ghost. This is confirmed by an account given of a native burial on the Vasse River in Western Australia. We are told that when the grave had been filled in, the natives piled logs on it to a considerable height and then constructed a hut upon the logs, after which one of the male relations went into the hut and said, "I sit in his house."219 Thus it would seem that the hut on the grave is regarded as the house of the dead man. If only these sepulchral huts were kept up permanently, they might develop into something like temples, in which the spirits of the departed might be invoked and propitiated with prayer and sacrifice. It is thus that the great round huts, in which the remains of dead kings of Uganda are deposited, have grown into sanctuaries or shrines, where the spirits of the deceased monarchs are consulted as oracles through the medium of priests.220 But in Australia this development is prevented by the simple forgetfulness of the savages. A few years suffice with them to wipe out the memory of the deceased and with it his chance of