(M181) Among the tribes settled on the southern coast of New South Wales, of which the Coast Murring tribe may be regarded as typical, the drama of resurrection from the dead was exhibited in a graphic form to the novices at initiation. Before they were privileged to witness this edifying spectacle they had been raised to the dignity of manhood by an old man, who promoted them to their new status by the simple process of knocking a tooth out of the mouth of each with the help of a wooden chisel and hammer. The ceremony of the resurrection has been described for us in detail by an eye-witness, the late Dr. A. W. Howitt, one of the best authorities on the customs of the Australian aborigines. The scene selected for the sacred drama was the bottom of a deep valley, where a sluggish stream wound through a bed of tall sharp-edged sedge. Though the hour was between ten and eleven o’clock in the morning, the sun had but just peeped over the mountains which enclosed the valley like a wall on the east; and while the upper slopes, clothed with a forest of tall rowan trees, looked warm and bright in sunshine, which shot between the grey stems and under the light feathery foliage of the trees, all the bottom of the dell was still in deep shadow and dank with the moisture of the night’s rain. While the novices rested and warmed themselves at a crackling fire, the initiated men laid their heads together, prepared a stock of decorations made of stringy bark, and dug a grave. There was some discussion as to the shape of the grave, but the man who was to be buried in it decided the question by declaring that he would be laid in it on his back at full length. He was a man of the eagle-hawk totem and belonged to the tribal subdivision called Yibai. So while two men under his directions were digging the grave with sticks in the friable granitic soil, he superintended the costume of the other actors in the drama. Sheets of bark were beaten out into fleeces of stringy fibre, and in these garments six performers were clothed from head to foot so that not even a glimpse could be obtained of their faces. Four of them were tied together by a cord which was fastened to the back of their heads, and each of them carried two pieces of bark in his hands. The other two walked free, but hobbled along bent double and supporting their tottery steps on staves to mark the weight of years; for they played the part of two medicine-men of venerable age and great magical power. By this time the grave was ready, and the eagle-hawk man stretched himself in it at full length on a bed of leaves, his head resting on a rolled-up blanket, just as if he were a corpse. In his two hands, crossed on his chest, he held the stem of a young tree (_Persoonia linearis_), which had been pulled up by the roots and now stood planted on his chest, so that the top of it rose several feet above the level of the ground. A light covering of dried sticks filled the