In several tribes it is customary to bury the body where the person was born. I know of a case where a dying man was transported fifty miles in order to be buried in the place of his nativity. It has even happened that the natives have begun digging outside a white man’s kitchen door, because they wanted to bury an old man born there. In Central Queensland I saw many burial-places on hills. Such are also said to be found in New South Wales and in Victoria. These burial-grounds have been in use for centuries, and are considered sacred.
In South Australia and in Victoria the head is not buried with the body, for the skull is preserved and used as a drinking-cup. It is a common custom to place the dead between pieces of bark and grass on a scaffold, where they remain until they are decayed, and then the bones are buried in the ground. In the northern part of Queensland I have heard people say that the natives have a custom of placing themselves under these scaffolds to let the fat drop on them, and that they believe that this puts them in possession of the strength of the dead man.
A kind of mummy, dried by the aid of fire and smoke, is also found in Australia. Male children are most frequently prepared in this manner. The corpse is then packed into a bundle, which is carried for some time by the mother. She has it with her constantly, and at night sleeps with it at her side. After about six months, when nothing but the bones remain, she buries it in the earth. Full-grown men are also sometimes carried in this manner, particularly the bodies of great warriors. This is done, for instance, in the southern part of Queensland, and a mummy of this kind may be seen in the Brisbane Museum. Mr. Finch-Hatton relates in Advance Australia that when an old warrior dies he is skinned with the greatest care, and after the survivors have eaten as much of him as they like, the bones are cleaned and packed into the skin, and thus the remains are carried for years.
The natives in the neighbourhood of Portland Bay, in the south-western part of South Australia, cremate their dead by placing the corpse in a hollow tree and setting fire to it. This is also done by the tribes west of Townsville.
In connection with this, I am reminded of Lucian’s words: “Various people have various modes of burial. The Greeks cremated their dead; the Persians buried them; the Hindoos anoint them with a kind of gum; the Scythians eat them; and the Egyptians embalm them.” Here we are given nearly all the modes of burial which have existed both among civilised people and among barbarians, and strange to say, we find all these modes represented among the savages of Australia.
The natives of Australia have this peculiarity, in common with the savages of other countries, that they never utter the names of the dead, lest their spirits should hear the voices of the living and thus discover their whereabouts.
There seems to be a widespread belief in the soul’s existence independently of matter. On this point Fraser relates that the Kūlin tribe (Victoria) believes that every man and animal has a mūrŭp (ghost or spirit), which can pass into other bodies. A person’s mūrŭp may in his lifetime leave his body and visit other people in their dreams. After death the mūrŭp is supposed to appear again, to visit the grave of its former possessor, to communicate with living persons in their dreams, to eat remnants of food lying near the camp, and to warm itself by their night fires.[[15]] A similar belief has been observed among the blacks of Lower Guinea. On my travels I, too, found a widespread fear of the spirits of the dead, to which the imagination of the natives attributed all sorts of remarkable qualities. The greater the man was on earth the more his departed spirit is feared. Of the spirits of those long since departed there is no dread. Upon the whole, it may be said that these children of nature are unable to conceive a human soul independent of the body, and the future life of the individual lasts no longer than his physical remains.
[15]. Transactions of Royal Society of New South Wales, 1882.
In the various tribes are so-called wizards, who pretend to communicate with the spirits of the dead and get information from them. They are able to produce sickness or death whenever they please, and they can produce or stop rain and many other things. Hence these wizards are greatly feared. Mr. Curr has very properly called attention to the influence of this fear of witchcraft upon the character and customs of the natives. It makes them bloodthirsty, and at the same time darkens and embitters their existence. An Australian native is unable to conceive death as natural, except as the result of an accident or of old age, while diseases and plagues are always ascribed to witchcraft and to hostile blacks.
This superstitious fear causes and maintains hatred between the tribes, and is the chief reason why the Australian blacks continue to live in small communities and are unable to rise to a higher plane of social development.