The conduct of Why-Why was certainly calculated to outrage all conservative feeling.  When on the war-path or in the excitement of the chase he had even been known to address a tribesman by his name, as “Old Cow,” or “Flying Cloud,” or what not, instead of adopting the orthodox nomenclature of the classificatory system, and saying, “Third cousin by the mother’s side, thrice removed, will you lend me an arrow?” or whatever it might be.  On “tabu-days,” once a week, when the rest of the people in the cave were all silent, sedentary, and miserable (from some superstitious feeling which we can no longer understand), Why-Why would walk about whistling, or would chip his flints or set his nets.  He ought to have been punished with death, but no one cared to interfere with him.

Instead of dancing at the great “corroborees,” or religious ballets of his people, he would “sit out” with a girl whose sad, romantic history became fatally interwoven with his own.  In vain the medicine-men assured him that Pund-jel, the great spirit, was angry.  Why-Why was indifferent to the thunder which was believed to be the voice of Pund-jel.  His behaviour at the funeral of a celebrated brave actually caused what we would call a reformation in burial ceremonies.

It was usual to lay the corpses of the famous dead in a cave, where certain of the tribesmen were sent to watch for forty days and nights the decaying body.  This ghastly task was made more severe by the difficulty of obtaining food.  Everything that the watchers were allowed to eat was cooked outside the cave with complicated ceremonies.  If any part of the ritual was omitted, if a drop or a morsel were spilled, the whole rite had to be done over again from the beginning.  This was not all.  The chief medicine-man took a small portion of the meat in a long spoon, and entered the sepulchral cavern.  In the dim light he approached one of the watchers of the dead, danced before him, uttered a mysterious formula of words, and made a shot at the hungry man’s mouth with a long spoon.  If the shot was straight, if the spoon did not touch the lips or nose or mouth, the watcher made ready to receive a fresh spoonful.  But if the attempt failed, if the spoon did not go straight to the mark, the mourners were obliged to wait till all the cooking ceremonies were performed afresh, when the feeding began again.

Now, Why-why was a mourner whom the chief medicine-man was anxious to “spite,” as children say, and at the end of three days’ watching our hero had not received a morsel of food.  The spoon had invariably chanced to miss him.  On the fourth night Why-Why entertained his fellow-watchers with a harangue on the imbecility of the whole proceeding.  He walked out of the cave, kicked the chief medicine-man into a ravine, seized the pot full of meat, brought it back with him, and made a hearty meal.  The other mourners, half dead with fear, expected to see the corpse they were “waking” arise, “girn,” and take some horrible revenge.  Nothing of the sort occurred, and the burials of the cave dwellers gradually came to be managed in a less irksome way.