“Most of the Ngarigo know about these places but we didn’t talk about them for fear of them being desecrated or destroyed,” Ngarigo woman Michelle Francis says. “As children we would eavesdrop on the adult conversations about such things but we never talked because we didn’t want the white people to know where they were.”

When floodwater washed away a creek bed at nearby Rock Flat Creek in 1991, it exposed two individuals and some astoundingly precious funerary artefacts of the Ngarigo people. The burial was found to be at least 7,000 years old: the oldest recorded site in the region.

Sydney-based Ngarigo woman Simone Davison says visiting the burial ground “brings me into connection with the place.” “I feel terribly proud that is an ancestor of mine and that dirt up there has the same minerals in it that are in my blood,” Davidson says. “It’s the essence of my country and it’s the essence of me.”

Written by Lisa Hogben (2019) https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/apr/14/ngarigo-australias-people-of-the-snow-a-photo-essay 

P. Beveridge describing the burial of an old woman in 1883:

“...a shallow hole is merely scraped in the most convenient spot, having due regard to proximity and softness of soil, where in the body is careless thrown without the slightest preparation or ceremony, covered up and forgotten, unless, indeed, the shallow grave chances to be scraped.”

W.D. Wright’s description of the burial of the Ngunnawal chief Hong Yong at Tharwa in what is now the southern ACT:

“After his death at Cuppercumbalong, the men of the tribe got together, tied him up in a complete ball, then cut him open between hip and rib, and through the orifice withdrew the old chap’s kidney fat, distributing it in small pieces to every gin [woman] in the camp, who stowed the treasure away in the net bags they always carried around their shoulders. His grave was on top of a rocky hill … and about five or six feet in depth. A tunnel about six feet in length was excavated and the body inserted, with his spears (broken in half), his shield, nulla nulla, boomerang, tomahawk, possum rug, and other effects. Then the hole was filled in with stones and earth.”

A.W. Howitt’s description of Kamilaroi people’s practice:

“While the body was still warm, they brought nets and possum rugs as wrappers for the corpse, spread them on the ground, and doubled the body into the form of a bale, with the knees and chin touching each other. Then they wrapped the bale in the nets and rugs and tied it tightly. A shallow hole was dug with yam-sticks, in which the body was placed, and being filled in with soil, was covered with logs and deadwood to keep the dingoes out.”