Notes by Howitt on Omeo 'tribe' and letter from Bulmer

Transcription - Page 25

been with the old man, that he had joined
his two wives who went before him but that
she had mastered both of them and still
retained her position of wife.

3. Do the dead eat too. I fear I cannot give
a certain sound here for though I have
seen the alone old woman take food
and leave it in the bush for the old man
yet the Blacks said it was because
her mind was wrong, as I never met
any other case where it was done. I
fear the evidence is against it. That
the Blacks think their departed friends
see their grief I dare say is correct as
the women on the Lower Murray so often
visited the grave of their husbands and
deposited a plaster cap they had
been at great trouble to collect material
for + to make, thus I have seen many
such caps at a grave. No doubt they
thought this would be gratifying to their
friend who would see he or she were
not forgotten. I say her or she but I
think it would be only he for as
a rule the poor women were not
mourned over, at all events more
fuss was made over a man, and
no plaster caps were left at the
grave of a woman.

4 I have tried to find out the ideas of
the Blacks with regard to the lower
animals having (Mraats) but all
here say they do not think so as