[Note 80:  “They often deposit their dead on trees and on scaffolds.”  —­Catlin’s American Indians, vol. ii. p. 10—­vide also vol. i. p. 89]

The lamentations are raised by the natives around, fires are made below, so that the smoke may ascend over the corpse, and the mourners usually remain encamped about the place for a great length of time, or until the body is thoroughly dry, after which they leave it.  Mr. Schurman says, “At Port Lincoln, after the body is put in a grave, and a little earth is thrown on it; the natives place a number of sticks across its mouth, over which they spread grass or bushes to prevent the remaining earth from falling down, so that an empty space of about three feet in depth is left between the body and the top earth.”

At the Flinders river (Gulf of Carpentaria), Captain Stokes observes, “At the upper part of Flinders river, a corpse was found lodged in the branches of a tree, some twenty feet high from the ground; it had three coverings, first, one of bark, then a net, and outside of all a layer of sticks.”

On the Murray river, and among the contiguous tribes, many differences occur in the forms of burial adopted by the various tribes.  Still-born children are buried immediately.  Infants not weaned are carried about by the mother for some months, well wrapped up, and when thoroughly dry, are put into nets or bags, and deposited in the hollows of trees, or buried.  Children and young people are buried as soon as practicable after death, and a spearing match generally ensues.

Old people are also buried without unnecessary delay.  I have even seen a man in the prime of life all ready placed upon the bier before he was dead, and the mourners and others waiting to convey him to his long home, as soon as the breath departed.

In the case of a middle-aged, or an old man, the spearing and fighting contingent upon a death is always greater than for younger natives.  The burial rites in some tribes assimilate to those practised near Adelaide; in others I have witnessed the following ceremony:—­The grave being dug, the body was laid out near it, on a triangular bier (birri), stretched straight on the back, enveloped in cloths and skins, rolled round and corded close, and with the head to the eastward; around the bier were many women, relations of the deceased, wailing and lamenting bitterly, and lacerating their thighs, backs, and breasts, with shells or flint, until the blood flowed copiously from the gashes.  The males of the tribe were standing around in a circle, with their weapons in their hands, and the stranger tribes near them, in a similar position, imparting to the whole a solemn and military kind of appearance.  After this had continued for some time, the male relatives closed in around the bier, the mourning women renewed their lamentations in a louder tone, and two male relatives stepped up to the bier, and stood across the body, one at the head, and one at the foot, facing each other.