“Feasting on our own lov’d one
With sanguinary jaws and tongue,
The wretches sat, and gnaw’d, and kept
Devouring, while their victim slept.
Yho, yang, yho yang, yang yho.
“Yes, unconsciously he rested
In a slumber too profound;
While vile Boyl-yas sat and feasted
On the victim they had bound
In sleep:—Mooligo, dear young brother,
Where shall we find the like of thee?
Favourite of thy tender mother,
We again shall never see
Mooligo, our dear young brother.
Yho, yang yho, ho, ho.
“Men, who ever bold have been,
Are your long spears sharpened well?
Fix anew the quartz-stone keen,
Let each shaft upon them tell.
Poise your meer-ros, long and sure,
Let the kileys whiz and whirl
Strangely through the air so pure;
Heavy dow-uks at them hurl;
Shout the yell they dread to hear.
Let the young men leap on high,
To avoid the quivering spear;
Light of limb and quick of eye,
Who sees well has nought to fear.
Let them shift, and let them leap,
While the quick spear whistling flies,
Woe to him who cannot leap!
Woe to him who has bad eyes!”
When an old woman has commenced a chant of this kind, she will continue it until she becomes positively exhausted; and upon her ceasing, another takes up the song. The effect some of them have upon the assembled men is very great; indeed, it is said that these addresses of the old women are the cause of most of the disturbances which take place. Thus, even amid the forests of New Holland, the influence of woman will, in one way or another, make itself felt.
The ceremonies observed at the funeral of a native vary, as might be expected, in so great a space, but they are wild and impressive in every part of New Holland. According to Collins, the natives of the colony called New South Wales were in the habit of burning the bodies of those who had passed the middle age of life, but burial seems the more universal method of disposing of their dead among the Australians. Some very curious drawings and figures cut in the rock were discovered by Captain Grey, in North-Western Australia, but whether these were burying-places does not appear. For the account of these works of rude art, which is extremely interesting, but too long to transcribe, the reader is referred to the delightful work of the traveller just mentioned.
The shrieks and piercing cries uttered by the women over their dead relatives, are said to be truly fearful, and agreeably to the ancient custom of idolatrous eastern nations mentioned in 1 Kings xviii. 28, and in Jer. xlviii. 37,[61] they tear and lacerate themselves most frightfully, occasionally cutting off portions of their beards, and, having singed them, throwing them upon the dead body. With respect to their tombs, these are of various sorts in different districts. In the gulph of Carpentaria, on the Northern coast, Flinders found several skeletons of natives, standing upright in the hollow trunks of trees; the skulls and bones, being smeared or painted partly red and partly white, made a very strange appearance. On the banks of the river Darling, in the interior of Eastern Australia, Major Mitchell fell in with a tribe, which had evidently suffered greatly from small-pox,[62] or some similar disease, and in the same neighbourhood he met with some remarkable mounds or tombs, supposed to cover the remains of that portion of the tribe which had been swept off by the same disease that had left its marks upon the survivors. On a small hill, overlooking the river, were three large tombs, of an oval shape, and about twelve feet across in the longest diameter. Each stood in the centre of an artificial hollow, the mound in the middle being about five feet high; and on each of them were piled numerous withered branches and limbs of trees, forming no unsuitable emblems of mortality. There were no trees on this hill, save one quite dead, which seemed to point with its hoary arms, like a spectre, to the tombs. A melancholy waste, where a level country and boundless woods extended beyond the reach of vision, was in perfect harmony with the dreary foreground of the scene.
Indeed, to those who have been from infancy accustomed to the quiet consecrated burying places of our own land,—spots which, in rural districts, are usually retired, yet not quite removed from the reach of “the busy hum of men;” to those who have always looked upon a Christian temple,
“Whose taper spire points, finger-like, to heaven,”
as the almost necessary accompaniment of a burial-place, the appearance of the native tombs in the desolate wilds of a savage and uncultivated country, must be dreary in the extreme. Scenes of this character must appear to the eye of a Christian almost emblematical of the spiritual blank—the absence of any sure and certain hope—in the midst of which the natives, whose remains are there reposing, must have lived and died. How striking is Captain Grey’s description of another tomb, which was found in a totally different part of New Holland, near the western coast, and at no great distance from the Swan River settlement! The scenery, not, indeed, in the immediate vicinity, but very near to the newly-made grave, is thus described. Even at mid-day, the forest wore a sombre aspect, and a stillness and solitude reigned throughout it that were very striking. Occasionally, a timid kangaroo might be seen stealing off in the distance, or a kangaroo-rat might dart out from a tuft beneath your feet, but these were rare circumstances. The most usual disturbers of these wooded solitudes were the black cockatoos; “but I have never, in any part of the world,” adds the enterprising traveller, “seen so great a want of animal life as in these mountains.” It was not far from this lonely district, in a country nearly resembling it, only less wooded and more broken into deep valleys, that a recent grave was found, carefully constructed, with a hut built over it, to protect the now senseless slumberer beneath from the rains of winter. All that friendship could do to render his future state happy had been done. His throwing-stick was stuck in the ground at his head; his broken spears rested against the entrance of the hut; the grave was thickly strewed with wilgey, or red earth; and three trees in front of the hut, chopped with a variety of notches and uncouth figures, bore testimony that his death had been bloodily avenged. The native Kaiber, who acted as guide to the travellers, gazed upon this scene with concern and uneasiness. Being asked why the spears were broken, the trees notched, and the red earth strewed upon the grave, his reply was, “Neither you nor I know: our people have always done so, and we do so now,”—quite as good a reason as many who think themselves far more enlightened are able to give for their actions. When a proposal was made to stop for the night at this solitary spot, poor Kaiber resisted it; “I cannot rest here,” said he, “for there are many spirits in this place.”[63]
When Mr. Montgomery Martin was in Australia, he obtained with some difficulty the dead body of an old woman, who had long been known about Sydney. Hearing of her death and burial in the forest, about twenty-five miles from his residence, he went thither, and aided by some stock-keepers, found the grave,—a slightly elevated and nearly circular mound. The body was buried six feet deep, wrapped in several sheets of bark, the inner one being of a fine silvery texture. Several things which the deceased possessed in life, together with her favourite dog, were buried with her,—all apparently for use in another world. The skull of this poor creature was full of indentations, as if a tin vessel had been struck by a hammer; light might be seen through these hollows, which had been caused by blows of whaddies (hard sticks) when she was young, and some bold youths among the natives courted her after this strange fashion. It seemed scarcely possible that marks so extraordinary could have been made in the human skull without fracturing it.[64]