rts of the world. Nowhere, perhaps, has the
practice prevailed more generally or been carried out with greater
severity than in aboriginal Australia. For example, with regard to the
tribes in the central part of Victoria we are told that "the parents of
the deceased lacerate themselves fearfully, especially if it be an only
son whose loss they deplore. The father beats and cuts his head with a
tomahawk until he utters bitter groans. The mother sits by the fire and
burns her breasts and abdomen with a small fire-stick till she wails
with pain; then she replaces the stick in the fire, to use again when
the pain is less severe. This continues for hours daily, until the time
of lamentation is completed; sometimes the burns thus inflicted are so
severe as to cause death."[229] It is especially the women, and above
all the widows, who torture themselves in this way. Speaking of the
tribes of Victoria, a writer tells us that on the death of her husband a
widow, "becoming frantic, seizes fire-sticks and burns her breasts,
arms, legs, and thighs. Rushing from one place to another, and intent
only on injuring herself, and seeming to delight in the self-inflicted
torture, it would be rash and vain to interrupt her. She would fiercely
turn on her nearest relative or friend and burn him with her brands.
When exhausted, and when she can scarcely walk, she yet endeavours to
kick the embers of the fire, and to throw them about. Sitting down, she
takes the ashes in her hands, rubs them into her wounds, and then
scratches her face (the only part not touched by the fire-sticks) until
the blood mingles with the ashes which partly hide her cruel
wounds."[230] Among the Kurnai of South-eastern Victoria the relations
of the dead would cut and gash themselves with sharp stones and
tomahawks until their heads and bodies streamed with blood.[231] In the
Mukjarawaint tribe, when a man died, his kinsfolk wept over him and
slashed themselves with tomahawks and other sharp instruments for about
a week.[232] In the tribes of the Lower Murray and Lower Darling rivers
mourners scored their backs and arms, sometimes even their faces, with
red-hot brands, which raised hideous ulcers; afterwards they flung
themselves prone on the grave, tore out their hair by handfuls, rubbed
earth over their heads and bodies in great profusion, and ripped up
their green ulcers till the mingled blood and grime presented a ghastly
spectacle. These self-inflicted sores remain