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Volume 5 36 |
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A–Z |  |
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SEARCHING A TREE-GRAVE FOR EVIDENCE OF A WIZARD MURDERER The aborigines do not understand natural death. It is reckoned murder by magic. These Warramunga men are examining the tree-grave of a kinsman, three days after his death, hoping to find some trace of visiting bird or beast. This would indicate the totem of the killer, and further rites would show the person on whom vengeance should be violently executed |
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WHEN THE TREE-GRAVE PERIOD OF BURIAL IS OVER Happily, no totem marks were found. The body remained for a year in the tree. Now the kinsmen have returned, and raked the skeleton to the ground, after asking permission of the dead man's spirit. The youngest man smashes the skull with a stone axe, and all the bones, except one arm-bone, are moved with sticks into a strip of bark |