Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2Grey, George
History
Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2
Grey, George
Natural history -- Australia -- Western Australia; Western Australia -- Discovery and exploration
But at length the grave was finished, and they then threw some dry leaves
into it, and, setting fire to them, while the blaze was rising up,
everyone present struck repeatedly a bundle of spears with the mearu
which they held with the butts downwards, making a rattling noise. Then,
when the fire had burnt out, they placed the corpse beside the grave, and
gashed their thighs, and at the flowing of the blood they all said, "I
have brought blood," and they stamped the foot forcibly on the ground,
sprinkling the blood around them; then, wiping the wounds with a wisp of
leaves, they threw it, bloody as it was, on the dead man; then a loud
scream ensued and they lowered the body into the grave, resting on the
back, with the soles of the feet on the ground and the knees bent; they
filled the grave with soft brushwood, and piled logs on this to a
considerable height, being very careful all the time to prevent any of
the soil from falling into the apertures; they then constructed a hut
over the woodstack, and one of the male relations got into it and said,
"Mya balung einya ngin-na" ("I sit in his house.") One of the women then
dropped a few live coals at his feet, and, having stuck his dismantled
meerro at the end of one of the mounds, they left the place, retiring in
a contrary direction from that in which they came, chanting.
...
BURIAL AT KING GEORGE's SOUND.
The two foregoing descriptions exhibit the native funeral ceremonies as
practised at Perth, and at the Vasse on the sea-coast to the south of
Perth. I shall now add a third description of the usages at King George's
Sound as given by Mr. Scott Nind in the first volume of the Journal of
the Royal Geographical Society page 46:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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