In
his hand he held a small bush, which appeared to be growing in the
soil, and other bushes were stuck in the ground to heighten the
effect. Then the novices were brought and placed beside the grave.
Next, a procession of men, disguised in stringy bark fibre, drew
near. They represented a party of medicine-men, guided by two
reverend seniors, who had come on pilgrimage to the grave of a
brother medicine-man, who lay buried there. When the little
procession, chanting an invocation to Daramulun, had defiled from
among the rocks and trees into the open, it drew up on the side of
the grave opposite to the novices, the two old men taking up a
position in the rear of the dancers. For some time the dance and
song went on till the tree that seemed to grow from the grave began
to quiver. "Look there!" cried the men to the novices, pointing to
the trembling leaves. As they looked, the tree quivered more and
more, then was violently agitated and fell to the ground, while amid
the excited dancing of the dancers and the chanting of the choir the
supposed dead man spurned from him the superincumbent mass of sticks
and leaves, and springing to his feet danced his magic dance in the
grave itself, and exhibited in his mouth the magic substances which
he was supposed to have received from Daramulun in person.
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