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Volume 5 37 |
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A–Z |  |
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WARRAMUNGA BURIAL IN WHITE ANT-HILL FOR REINCARNATION Some Australian tribes eat their dead as a sacred duty, to ensure reincarnation among kinsmen. The tribes of the Northern Territory have a shorter way of burial. Having collected the bones from the tree-grave, they knock off the top of a white ants' mound, slide the remains down the centre, and replace the top of the hill. Only an arm-bone is kept |
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THE MYSTIC ARM-BONE IS PREPARED FOR TOTEM RITES Here opens the grand ceremony over the detached arm-bone of the dead man. The oldest tribesman carefully wraps it in paper-bark and ties it with opossum fur string, decorating one end with feathers. He places it in the hollow trunk of a gum-tree, and all the burial party then hunt in the scrub for a day. They have to get the funeral meats for the totem ceremonies |