of mourning was
over, she would take the widow's cap--which was a sort of copi or gypsum
covering put on wet to her head--and place it on the grave of her
husband.

On the Narran the widows plaster their heads with copi or bidyi, as
they call it, but so thinly that it cakes off. They renew it, and keep
their heads covered with it for the allotted term of mourning, then
just let it gradually all wear off.

Those widows' caps, having the imprint of nets inside them, are very
old; for hair nets have been out of fashion for very many years in
camp-land, so such rank as antique curios.

I don't think the small girl who thought when she grew up she'd choose
to be a widow, would have thought so if she had been born black.

When a black woman's husband dies she has to cover herself with mud,
and sleep beside a smouldering smoke all night. Three days afterwards,
black fellows go and make a fire by the creek. They chase the widow and
her sisters, who might have been her husband's wives, down to the
creek. The widow catches hold of the smoking bush, puts it under her
arm, and jumps into the middle of the creek; as the smoking bush is
going out she drinks some of the smoky water. Then out she comes, is
smoked at the fire; she then calls to those in the camp, and looks
towards her husband's grave and calls again; his spirit answers, and
the blacks call to her that they have heard him.

After that she is allowed to speak; she had been doomed to silence
since his death, but for lamentations. She goes to the new camp, where
another big smoke is made. She puts on her widow's cap, which, as it
wears out, has to be renewed for many months; for some months, too, she
keeps her face daubed with white.

Every time a stranger comes to the camp the widow has to make a smoke
and smoke the camp again. The nearest of kin to her husband has a right
to claim her as wife when her mourning is over.

Should a woman be left a widow two or three times there are sinister
whisperings about her. She is spoken of as having a 'white heart'; and
no man can live long, they say, with a woman having a 'white heart.'

The graves in some parts of Australia are marked by carved trees; only
a few painted upright posts marked them on the Narran.

A tabooed camp has always a marked tree--just a piece of bark cut off
and some red markings made on the wood, which indicate that the place
is gummarl.

Any possessions of the dead not buried with them are burnt,