an the sound of the wind as it shakes the reeds below the branch
in which the corpse is lying. The object of this aerial tomb is
evident enough, namely, to protect the corpse from the dingo, or
native dog. That the ravens and other carrion-eating birds should
make a banquet upon the body of the dead man does not seem to
trouble the survivors in the least, and it often happens that the
traveler is told by the croak of the disturbed ravens that the body
of a dead Australian is lying in the branches over his head.

The aerial tombs are mostly erected for the bodies of old men who
have died a natural death; but when a young warrior has fallen in
battle the body is treated in a very different manner. A moderately
high platform is erected, and upon this is seated the body of the
dead warrior with the face toward the rising sun. The legs are
crossed and the arms kept extended by means of sticks. The fat is
then removed, and after being mixed with red ochre is rubbed over
the body, which has previously been carefully denuded of hair, as is
done in the ceremony of initiation. The legs and arms are covered
with zebra-like stripes of red, white, and yellow, and the weapons
of the dead man are laid across his lap.

The body being thus arranged, fires are lighted under the platform,
and kept up for ten days or more, during the whole of which time the
friends and mourners remain by the body, and are not permitted to
speak. Sentinels relieve each other at appointed intervals, their
duty being to see that the fires are not suffered to go out, and to
keep the flies away by waving leafy boughs or bunches of emu
feathers. When a body has been treated in this manner it becomes
hard and mummy-like, and the strongest point is that the wild dogs
will not touch it after it has been so long smoked. It remains
sitting on the platform for two months or so, and is then taken down
and buried, with the exception of the skull, which is made into a
drinking-cup for the nearest relative. * * *

This mode of mummifying resembles somewhat that already described as the
process by which the Virginia kings were preserved from decomposition.

Figs. 21 and 22 represent the Australian burials described, and are
after the original engravings in Wood's work. The one representing
scaffold-burial resembles greatly the scaffolds of our own Indians.

With regard to the use of scaffolds as places of depo