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Updated: May 19, 2025
When the grave was completed, they set fire to some dried leaves and twigs which they threw in, and old Weeban, the friendly sorcerer, knelt at the foot of the grave, with his back to the east, and his head bowed down to the earth in a posture of the deepest attention; his office being a very important one, namely, to discover in what direction the hostile Boyl-yas would take their flight, when drawn out of the earth by the heat.
Yenna and Warrup, the brothers-in-law of Mulligo, were digging his grave, which as usual extended due east and west; the Perth boyl-ya, Weeban by name, who, being a relation of the deceased, could of course have had no hand in occasioning his death, superintended the operations.
When the grave was completed, they set fire to some dried leaves and twigs, then throwing them in they soon had a large blaze in it: during this part of the ceremony old Weeban knelt on the ground at the foot of the grave with his back turned towards the east, and his head bowed to the earth, his whole attitude denoting the most profound attention; the duty he had now to perform was a very important one, being no less than to discover in which direction the boyl-yas, when drawn out of the earth by the fire, would take flight.
The men having now completed their task the women came with bundles of blackboy tops which they had gathered, and laid these down on the central heap so as to give it a green and pleasing appearance; they placed neither meerro nor spear on the grave, but whilst they were filling in the earth old Weeban and another native sat on their hams at the head of it, facing the one to the north, and the other to the south, their foreheads leaning on their clasped hands, which rested on one end of a meerro whilst the other end was placed on the ground.
Old Weeban paid the greatest possible attention to see that the east and west direction of the grave was preserved, and if the least deviation from this line occurred in the heaps of sand, either at the head or foot, he made some of the natives rectify it by sweeping the sand into its proper form with boughs of trees.
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