Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2

by George Grey

As she proceeded the men became more and more excited, and at last Moondee, the most violent of them, started forward and was on the point of spearing one of Mulligo's wives; none of the men attempted to interfere with him; but, as I anticipated, the women seized him, and held him, so as to prevent him from executing his purpose. This conduct on his part at first appeared to me to arise from passion alone, but the reason of it was soon explained.

SUPPOSED CAUSE OF HIS DECEASE.

It appears that some two or three months before this period Weenat, a native of the upper part of the Swan, had stolen a cloak belonging to Miago, Mulligo's brother, and had, according to their belief, from malicious motives given this cloak to one of the native sorcerers, or boyl-yas, who by this means acquired some mysterious power over either Miago or his brother, but selected the latter for his victim, when he fell and broke his back. Another of these boyl-yas (according to the usual custom) was called in to give his advice, and he applied fire to the injured part. This treatment not succeeding, and the poor fellow wasting daily away, the natives became convinced that the unfriendly boyl-yas were in the habit of rendering themselves invisible, and nightly descending for the purpose of feasting on poor Mulligo's flesh whilst he slept, and being under the influence of a charm he was not aware of what was taking place; but Moondee chose to imagine that if his wife had been more vigilant the boyl-yas might have been detected, and hence intended to spear her in the leg as a punishment for her imputed neglect.

As I have before stated the women prevented this outrage from having effect, and the two trembling girls, neither of whom could have been more than fifteen, fled into Perth, to take refuge in some European's house. The native men and women, after their departure, indulged in the most unlimited abuse of boyl-yas in general, and of the Guildford boyl-yas in particular, against whom, according to the idea of the natives, they had very strong presumptive evidence from the circumstance of the cloak having been stolen by a Guildford man. It was still very doubtful what boyl-yas were the actual perpetrators of the crime, so they were contented with vowing to kill a great many of them in some direction or the other, as soon as anyone could detect that in which the suspected ones retired. This resolution having been formed the men went into Perth in order to see that no strange natives stole either of the young widows, whilst the women lay weeping over the dead body.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE FUNERAL. FORMATION OF THE GRAVE.

I accompanied the men into Perth, and in the course of an hour was summoned by the natives to witness the funeral ceremony. They had moved the body about half a mile from the spot where the man died; the women still leant over it, uttering the words, yang, yang, yang, and occasionally chanting a few sentences.

There were but few men present, as they were watching the widows in Perth. Yenna and Warrup, the brothers-in-law of Mulligo, were digging his grave, which as usual extended due east and west; the Perth boyl-ya, Weeban by name, who, being a relation of the deceased, could of course have had no hand in occasioning his death, superintended the operations. They commenced by digging with their sticks and hands several holes in a straight line, and as deep as they could; they then united them, and threw out the earth from the bottom of the pit thus made; all the white sand was thrown carefully into two heaps, nearly in the form of a European grave, and these heaps were situated one at the head and the other at the foot of the hole they were digging, whilst the dirty-coloured sand was thrown into two other heaps, one on each side. The grave was very narrow, only just wide enough to admit the body of the deceased. Old Weeban paid the greatest possible attention to see that the east and west direction of the grave was preserved, and if the least deviation from this line occurred in the heaps of sand, either at the head or foot, he made some of the natives rectify it by sweeping the sand into its proper form with boughs of trees.

Before the digging of the grave was completed many Europeans had arrived at the spot for the purpose of witnessing the ceremony; the natives were not a little annoyed at this, however they proceeded rapidly in their work, occasionally employing a spade, but from the extreme narrowness of the grave, it was by no means easy to make use of this tool. During the process of digging, an insect having been thrown up, its motions were watched with the most intense interest, and as this little animal thought proper to crawl off in the direction of Guildford, an additional proof was furnished to the natives of the guilt of the boyl-yas of that place.

SUPERSTITIOUS RITES.

When the grave was completed, they set fire to some dried leaves and twigs, then throwing them in they soon had a large blaze in it: during this part of the ceremony old Weeban knelt on the ground at the foot of the grave with his back turned towards the east, and his head bowed to the earth, his whole attitude denoting the most profound attention; the duty he had now to perform was a very important one, being no less than to discover in which direction the boyl-yas, when drawn out of the earth by the fire, would take flight. Their departure was not audible to common ears or visible to the eyes of ordinary mortals, but his power of boyl-ya gaduk enabled him to distinguish these sights and sounds which were invisible and inaudible to the bystanders.