being "nearer to him" than others. I am unable to ascertain the precise meaning of this expression. When pressed upon this question, a black would say, "Oh, that is what our fathers told us."
The information which I have given about the class organisation of the Wotjobaluk applies also to the Mukjarawaint and the Jupagalk, but although I know that the classes Gamutch and Krokitch extend over a much wider range, I am unable to give a detailed account of the several systems.
The Gournditch-mara used to make fires at the graves, in order that the spirits of their departed friends might warm themselves, and they also put food there so that they could eat if they were hungry.[1]
When a Jupagalk man died, all the men went out of the camp at dusk and watched carefully to see the gulkan-gulkan of the man who killed him, that is, by magic, peeping about in the bush about the camp. Then, knowing who it was, they formed a jolung-ulung, literally a "sneaking party," and go quietly and kill him. If they could, they hit him on the back of the neck with club (dolone-gunne) and took his fat.
To make the account of the burial customs of the Victorian tribes more complete, I again quote from Dawson's work.
When a person of common rank dies, the body is immediately bound, with the knees upon the chest, and tied up with an acacia bark cord in an opossum rug. Next day it is put between two sheets of bark, as in a coffin, and buried in a grave about two feet deep, with the head towards the rising sun. All the weapons, ornaments, and property of the deceased are buried with him. Stone axes are excepted, as being too valuable to be thus disposed of, and are inherited by the next of kin. If there is no time to dig a grave, the body is placed on a bier, and removed by two men to a distance of a mile or two. Then the relatives prepare a funeral pyre, on which the body is laid, with the head to the east. All the effects belonging to the
- ↑ J. H. Stähle.
