the free arm laid across

The grave-diggers then returned to camp and repeated their previous performance reenex, giving the dingo totem shouts and filing round the breakwind, but this time they cried, “Gah! Gahl Gah!” as they circled round. Then they all went back to the place where the mourners sat, and the loud wailing was renewed. Presently one of the brothers came over and silently handed some string to me. I tied Jajjala’s legs and thighs together and fastened his left arm to the upper arm, the hand resting against his chin. The right arm was left free and lay across the dead man’s breast.

The body was then lifted and carried on the shoulders of the four brothers. Four girl children, little sisters of the dead man, stood nearest the breakwind, with torches in their hands, and behind these the women stood, all crying, “Gah! Gahl Gah!” without stopping. The fathers and mothers of the dead man, with other mourners, remained in the spot where the wailing took place, and did not attend the burial.

As soon as the men had started with their burden, the little girls followed first reenex, with the men and women marching beside or behind them. All except the bearers had lighted torches.

When the grave was reached, Moondoorr and his woman, Nyanngauera, went into it, and covered the bottom thickly with green soft branches of the acacia. The body was then lowered and laid on its left side, the head to the west, the eyes looking towards the north,  the breast. All round and on top of the body green branches were pressed down by Moondoorr and his woman, and then the brother next in age and his woman took Moondoorr’s place, and filled every space round and about the body with branches, as no earth must touch the body of a newly dead dingo man. Two more young brothers put the final branches on until the green covering was level with the surface. Then Moondoorr and his brother took the logs that had been placed in readiness, and laid them lengthwise on top of the grave, close together, and well stamped down. On top of the logs more branches were put, and the space round the grave was made clean and level, and the semi-circular mound at the head battened and smoothed into shape with the wooden scoops. No one spoke above a whisper, as dingo men don’t address the spirits of their dead.

The neat green grave, the mound of white sand at its head, and the dear swept patch around, stood out in the now lessening firelight. There was no moon, but a brilliant twinkling starlight. When all was finished the mourners returned in the same order, the men leading, and giving the three shouts of their totem, and as soon as the camp was reached all gave way to their sorrow. Again and again Ganbia, the mother of the dead man reenex, would rise from the struggling, crying heap of men and women, and lifting her hands and face to the stars would utter a long, loud, heart-breaking cry and then throw herself flat on the ground, beating it with her hands. Both Ganbia and Nyeegala, her sister, are now bereft of every one of their young sons, hence their despairing grief. The burial ceremonies lasted about three or four hours. When grief had temporarily exhausted itself, the group gathered its few belongings and left the now “haunted” camp, coming over to the hill near my tent; and all through the dark hours men and women abandoned themselves to their grief. The men sat in little groups crying steadily, but Ganbia and Nyeegala and other mothers and elder sisters of the dead man ran keening and wailing along the valley, throwing themselves down on the stony ground in the excess of their sorrow. One long sustained cry would go ringing and echoing into the distance, the cool, dear and dewy night sending it far amongst the sandhills.