nd see for themselves the death was not the result of foul play.

After the body was filled up with Dheal leaves it was put into its bark
coffin and smoke fires made round it.

As each relation arrived he was blindfolded and led up to the corpse,
which was held up standing by some of the men. When the blindfolded
relation came near, the bandage was taken off him and before him he saw
standing his relation, whom he examined to see if wounds were visible.
If signs of violence were apparent, the murderer had to be discovered
and stand his trial. He was given a shield to defend himself with.
Every man had a right to throw a weapon at him; should he manage to
defend himself successfully, as far as that crime was concerned he
would be henceforth a free man, no stigma attaching to him whatever. In
which, I fancy, the blacks show themselves a larger-minded people than
their white supplanters, who make this world no place for repentance
for wrong-doers, 'though they seek it with tears.' In the world's
opinion there is no limit to a man's sentence. We read the letter of
the Gospel, and leave the spirit of it to the blacks to apply.

Should there be a difficulty as to discovering the criminal, all the
men of the tribes amongst whom the murderer could be stand round the
coffin. A head man says to the corpse, 'Did such and such a man harm
you?' naming, one after another, all the men. At the guilty one's name
the corpse is said to knock a sort of rap, rap, rap.

That man has to stand his trial.

But as a rule the blacks like to bury their dead quickly, because the
spirit haunts their neighbourhood or its late camp until the body is
buried. Mysterious lights are said to be seen at night, and there is a
general scare in camp-land until a corpse is safely buried.

There are variations in the funeral rites of nearly every tribe. Even
in our district the dead were sometimes placed in hollow trees. I know
of skeletons in trees on the edge of the ridge on which the home
station was built. These are said to be for the most part the bodies of
worthless women or babies.

In the coastal districts there are platforms in trees on which dead
bodies were laid. In some places corpses are tied up in a sitting
posture. The tying, they say, is to keep them secure when spirits come
about, or body-snatchers for poison bones.

In some places the graves are covered with a sort of emu egg-shaped and
sized lumps of copi; and also, when a widow's term