as in one case, for three years. Such a body is dried by being placed on a stage under which the women keep a slow fire constantly burning. The fat which exudes from it is collected in vessels and the young men rub it over their bodies to impart the good qualities of the deceased to themselves.
It is usually some young man who has died a violent death who is dried and carried about by his kindred. The reason assigned for the custom is that he has died before his time and would not rest in his grave. Such a body is tied up tightly at full length in a sheet of bark, which is painted or ornamented with emu feathers. When they are travelling two young men carry the body in the day and watch it at night, then two others the day following, and so on.[1]
In the Chepara tribe, when a man becomes ill, and believes that a man of another clan of the tribe has "caught" him—for instance, by giving him a 'possum rug made deadly by magic—he tells this to his friends before his death, and they take measures afterwards to avenge him. The medicine-man (Bugerum) in his dreams will see the culprit, and also the immediate cause of death, which had been in the gift, flying back to the river. When a man died he was tied up in the bark of the Ti-tree, the arms being crossed over the chest, the legs doubled up, and the knees close to the chin. The grave was dug about six feet deep with yam-sticks, in a lonely place, and where no tree could fall over it.
When about to bury the body, they stripped some bark and laid it at the bottom of the grave; they placed grass on the bark and then the body. Split sticks were placed across the body and the earth filled in, with a mound on the top covered with grass. A fire was made at the grave by the father or other near relative. The body was carried to the grave tied to a pole on the shoulders of two men. If the deceased had been killed by violence or was believed to have been the victim of evil magic, an old man blew into his ears, and whispered the name of the suspected culprit. The bearers then ran for a short distance in the direction in which the suspected person lived. After the burial, a party was made up to go and kill him.
- ↑ R. C. Lethbridge.
