sought in tying up the remains of the dead is to prevent the deceased from escaping from the tomb and frightening or injuring the survivors."
Footnote 195: (return)
A. W. Howitt, op. cit. p. 451.
Footnote 196: (return)
A. W. Howitt, op. cit. p. 467.
Footnote 197: (return)
J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 50.
Footnote 198: (return)
A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 452.
Footnote 199: (return)
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
