he same form.

The returned absentee is now at liberty to speak, and some of the party
in recitative recount to him all the leading facts that have occurred
since their last meeting; they are however very careful not to mention
the name of the person who is dead, but describe him by his attributes
and family in such a manner as to leave no doubt in the mind of the
hearer; but to name aloud one who is departed would be a gross violation
of their most sacred prejudices, and they carefully abstain from it.

CEREMONIES ON MEETING IN THE BUSH.

If natives meet in the bush the foregoing ceremonies are in part
observed: both parties at their first meeting sit down at a distance from
one another, preserving a profound silence and keeping their eyes fixed
on the ground; after a time one of them commences a chant about himself
and from what great family he has sprung; they then approach one another,
and if there is a death to communicate the men press breast to breast,
and knee to knee, remaining for some time with averted faces, lost in
melancholy thoughts; when they separate the women approach and kneel,
scratching their faces and crying in the way I have above described.
Should no relative have died upon either side the men, after rising up,
approach one another and enter into conversation; whilst the elder
married females, if they like a stranger, embrace him affectionately and
give him a loud-sounding kiss upon each cheek; on several occasions I
have had to submit myself, with as good a grace as I could, to this
salutation.

In these casual meetings of natives it occasionally happens that several
women kneel together, crying and embracing the knees of some old savage,
who stands erect in the midst of the group, with a proud and lordly air,
whilst they cower to the earth around him; sometimes they have children
slung at their backs, and these little things may be seen unconsciously
playing with their mothers' hair whilst this mournful scene is enacting.

PUNCTILIOS OF FORM.

Some old women are scrupulously punctilious about the performance of all
these matters of etiquette, attaching a degree of importance to them
which, in the eyes of civilized man, approaches the ludicrous; but they
look upon them in a very different light. I have seen a number of these
sticklers for form kneeling round a little boy not more than six or seven
years old, lamenting most bitterly, the little fellow meanwhile
preserving in his countenance