SINGING TO DEATH

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 January 1939, Page 5

SINGING TO DEATH

KIMBERLEY NATIVES'’ PRACTICE. CANBERRA, January 13. Mi'. A. Capell, who is at present engaged in. anthropological investigations in the northern Kimberley area, and was unable to be present at the Sei enco Congress, submitted a paper on systems of mythology in the noi-hern Kimber 1 ey div isi on. Among the curious cults practised in the Kimberley was that of "singing” a. victim to death, Mr. Capell .said. This was a practice w’hich was spreading. A (rec was chosen and the bark stripped oft' to about the height oi: 3ft. 'rhe victim was drawn on it with a sharp instrument, and represented with one leg straight down and the other doubled up under him. A string was drawn lied round the left bicep, and (he vein in the left arm was shown cut.

A hole was then dug under a root of the tret, end a lizard or very young kangaroo (which must, however, have its hair), was caught. If a kangaroo was taken, a leg of it was broken while Ibe animal was still alive, and it. or the lizard was covered with hot. stones. The participants in (he ceremony sat in a circle about, the tree and sang the name n." the victim over and over. "N<> tme i f-ll.s tile victim he is being sung to death," said Air. Capell, "bin. he dreams it and dies accordingly. No one who has taken, part in the ceremony may enter the water for 10 days alter it."

Mr. Capell said that the North Kimberley native believed that, when a person died he ceased, strictly .speaking, to be a person at all. This was accompanied by the belief (bar a poison could not become incarnate a second lime. However, in the western tribe reincarnation was accepted as possible. “A being whom the natives call W'olaro is the leading mythological clmracior of the Northern Kimberley native,” Air. Capell continued. "Woltiro was the crenter of heaven and (■•trill and all that was in them. They believe that Wolaro tells them to do eerinin thing'., ami that while ih 'y do those things (hey dn its his imprest. 1 !) tali ves. Among the western tribes there is no outstanding creator of men and things."