Note 211 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
"Amongst the Arafuras (Aru Islands) the treatment of their dead betrays in the greatest degree their uncivilised condition, and the uncertainty which exists among them as to their future state. When a man dies all his relations assemble and destroy all the goods he may have collected during his life, even the gongs are broken to pieces and thrown away. In their villages I met with several heaps of porcelain plates and basins, the property of deceased individuals, the survivors entertaining an idea that they have no right to make use of them."—Kolff's Voyage of the Dourga, p. 166.