" In Why-Why's time no other
explanation of natural death by disease or age was entertained. The old
woman's grave was dug, and all the wizards intently watched for the first
worm or insect that should crawl out of the mould. The head-wizard soon
detected a beetle, making, as he alleged, in the direction where Why-Why
stood observing the proceedings. The wizard at once denounced our hero
as the cause of the old woman's death. To have blenched for a moment
would have been ruin. But Why-Why merely lifted his hand, and in a
moment a spear flew from it which pinned his denouncer ignominiously to a
pine-tree. The funeral of the old woman was promptly converted into a
free fight, in which there was more noise than bloodshed. After this
event the medicine-men left Why-Why to his own courses, and waited for a
chance of turning public opinion against the sceptic.

The conduct of Why-Why was certainly calculated to outrage all
conservative feeling. When on the war-path or in the excitement of the
chase he had even been known to address a tribesman by his name, as "Old
Cow," or "Flying Cloud," or what not, instead of adopting the orthodox
nomenclature of the classificatory system, and saying, "Third cousin by
the mother's side, thrice removed, will you lend me an arrow?" or
whatever it might be. On "tabu-days," once a week, when the rest of the
people in the cave were all silent, sedentary, and miserable (from some
superstitious feeling which we can no longer understand), Why-Why would
walk about whistling, or would chip his flints or set his nets. He ought
to have been punished with death, but no one cared to interfere with him.

Instead of dancing at the great "corroborees," or religious ballets of
his people, he would "sit out" with a girl whose sad, romantic history
became fatally interwoven with his own. In vain the medicine-men assured
him that Pund-jel, the great spirit, was angry. Why-Why was indifferent
to the thunder which was believed to be the voice of Pund-jel. His
behaviour at the funeral of a celebrated brave actually caused what we
would call a reformation in burial ceremonies.

It was usual to lay the corpses of the famous dead in a cave, where
certain of the tribesmen were sent to watch for forty days and nights the
decaying body. This ghastly task was made more severe by the difficulty
of obtaining food. Everything that the watchers were allowed to eat was
cooked outside the cave with complicate