ed long unhealed.[233] Among
the Kamilaroi, a large tribe of eastern New South Wales, the mourners,
and especially the women, used to cut their heads with tomahawks and
allow the blood to dry on them.[234] Speaking of a native burial on the
Murray River, a writer says that "around the bier were many women,
relations of the deceased, wailing and lamenting bitterly, and
lacerating their thighs, backs, and breasts, with shells or flint, until
the blood flowed copiously from the gashes."[235] In the Boulia district
of Queensland women in mourning score their thighs, both inside and
outside, with sharp stones or bits of glass, so as to make a series of
parallel cuts; in neighbouring districts of Queensland the men make much
deeper cross-shaped cuts on their thighs.[236] In the Arunta tribe of
Central Australia a man is bound to cut himself on the shoulder in
mourning for his father-in-law; if he does not do so, his wife may be
given away to another man in order to appease the wrath of the ghost at
his undutiful son-in-law. Arunta men regularly bear on their shoulders
the raised scars which shew that they have done their duty by their dead
fathers-in-law.[237] The female relations of a dead man in the Arunta
tribe also cut and hack themselves in token of sorrow, working
themselves up into a sort of frenzy as they do so; yet in all their
apparent excitement they take care never to wound a vital part, but vent
their fury on their scalps, their shoulders, and their legs.[238]

[Sidenote: Cuttings for the dead among the Warramunga.]

In the Warramunga tribe of Central Australia Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
witnessed the mourning for a dead man. Even before the sufferer had
breathed his last the lamentations and self-inflicted wounds began. When
it was known that the end was near, all the native men ran at full speed
to the spot, and Messrs. Spencer and Gillen followed them to see what
was to be seen. What they saw, or part of what they saw, was this. Some
of the women, who had gathered from all directions, were lying prostrate
on the body of the dying man, while others were standing or kneeling
around, digging the sharp ends of yam-sticks into the crown of their
heads, from which the blood streamed down over their faces, while all
the time they kept up a loud continuous wail. Many of the men, rushing
up to the scene of action, flung themselves also higgledy-piggledy on
the sufferer, the women rising and making way for them, till no