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page 71
in top right corner of page is the number 13.
The trough is next carried about from one camp to another by one of the lately deceased's brothers (he always obtaining the most valued widow) it being in transit supported on the head, a thick coil of grass inter(can't read) to distribute the pressure equally. It may then go on its peregrinations for two to three months, a fresh mourning taking place at each camp.Every now and again, just about when the dusk is falling, this brother, in company with two or three other friends makes a circuit of about 1 or 1 1/2 miles round the camp with the remains : as soon as they can assure themselves (and this is done when the suitable opportunity offers) that they hear the bones rattle., as the package is jogged along, they know that they are in the neighbourhood of the alleged murderer. It is hardly necessary to add but that these scoundrels have already arranged among themselves on to whom to fix the guilt. In this Bloomfield District : the Barmabilla boys are deemed to be the weakest and most friendless & one of this tribe is generally, as a last recourse, deemed to be the culprit : he is enticed away on some hunting expedition, or for some corrobborree and then mercilessly speared. Some one must (this word is underlined) be killed for every death of any important male aboriginal. The trough and its contents, is not buried immediately after vengeance has been taken, but often carried about until such time as one of the deceased hero's group or blood mother, brothers or sons, happens to die.There are apparently no measures of a sanitary nature to preserve the health of the camp. Only in the case of young children, up to the time of their being able to walk, are the faeces and any stones or grass upon which they may have dropped, put into the fork of any convenient branch of neighbouring tree, the prevalent idea being that if a dog were to get at the evacuations the child would become unhealthy, and would require a much longer time than ordinary before it could learn to walk. I saw the fork of a dead sapling stuck up in close proximity to a hut, for this same purpose, at the Wyalla camp.