Mortuary Art

In north-eastern Arnhem Land when a man is dying his totemic songs are sung and his totemic stories related to assist him to become spiritualized. After death his body is painted red, his head is painted white, and his hair is made into a belt. The body is either buried or exposed on a platform, and a grave-post, up to 15 feet in height, with serrated jaws at the top to represent the mouth of his totem, together with a replica of a Macassan proa's mast to signify the departure of the spirit, are erected near the grave or in the camp. Several months later the bones are collected, painted red, and put into a bark coffin which is left in a tree near the camp for several more months. They are then transferred to another bark coffin, which is handed over ceremonially to his widow, mother and other female relatives. The spirit is now in the coffin, which is carried about for several months by the mother. The women finally return the coffin to the men, the spirit having left it and returned to the waterhole.   The men smash up the bones, and put them in a hollow grave-post, which is erected near the waterhole. Elaborate cycles of songs and dances are performed throughout the prolonged mortuary rites to remove all contact of the dead from the living, to restore the spirit to the clan's totemic waterhole, and to re-integrate the local group after its loss and disruption. The designs painted on the dead man's chest and skull, bark coffins, and grave-posts illustrate his personal totem associated with his clan's sacred waterhole, the home of his spirit. In Arnhem Land the mortality rate from natural causes, accidents, feuds and combats was a comparatively high one, and art, as a means of expressing the doctrines of the soul, totemism, and ancestral spirits, in addition to acting as a medium of social cohesion, is an extremely important element of the mortuary rites.