uses, they even said
old Beemunny had been given poison in her honey by an old-time rejected
lover. Well, by sweeping round the grave they would see what track was
on the swept place next morning, and according to that they would know
to what totem the murderer belonged. If the track should be an
iguana's, then one of the Beewee, or iguana totem, was guilty; if an
emu, then one of the Dinewan, or emu totem, and so on.

Old Hippi joined me a little further on. He explained that the service
was not as it would have been some years ago. That I knew, because when
I first went to the station I had seen them going to funerals all
decorated as if for corroborees. Round their waists, wrists, knees and
ankles had been twigs of Dheal, the sacred tree, and the rest of their
bodies had been painted.

Hippi said a great deal more would have been spoken and sung at the
grave if the dead person had been a man. His spirit would have in a
short sort of prayer been commended to Byamee, who would have been
intreated to let the dead enter Bullimah (heaven), as he had kept the
Boorah laws--that is, of course, if he had been initiated: the spirits
of the uninitiated wander until they are reincarnated, and never enter
Bullimah. One curious coincidence occurred in connection with this
burial.

Seeing the droughty desolation of the country, as we walked to the
grave, I asked old Bootha when she thought it would rain again. Coming
very close to me she half whispered:

'In three days I think it; old woman dead tell me when she dying that
"'sposin" she can send 'em rain, she send 'im three days when her Yowee
bulleerul--spirit breath--go long Oobi Oobi.'

Beemunny died on Wednesday night. On Saturday when we went to bed the
skies were as cloudless as they had been for weeks. In the middle of
the night we were awakened by the patter of rain-drops on the iron
roof. All night it rained, and all the next day.

It is said that a dead person always sends rain within a week of his
death to wash out his tracks on earth.

One little black girl told me she always felt sad when she saw
thunderclouds, because she thought some dead person had sent them.

As a rule, there is a good deal more shedding of blood over a grave
than I saw. This blood offering is said to please the dead, being a
proof to them of the affection of the living. It is funeral etiquette
to prepare yourself with a weapon with which to shed this blood, but
likewise etiquette for a f