The sounds of a pukamani came from the bushes near the beach of Pirlangimpi. Accidentally, I had stumbled on a ritual in progress. Why were mortuary rites performed at this time and day, I wondered. To the best of my knowledge, no one had died recently. And why had this rather old-fashioned site been chosen? Rites in this Aboriginal township on Melville Island, Australia, tended to be held on the ceremonial grounds close to the living quarters of the elderly. On that late afternoon in 1988, it soon turned out, however, that not a single adult was involved in the dancing and singing that had caught my ear. Approaching the scene, I saw a group of children, wearing skirts and loincloths. They had painted themselves up with yellow ochres and white pipe clay. A nine-year old boy had taken the lead. He uttered the lyrics of a song, initiated the ritual yells, and directed the dancers. The other ones, when not dancing, kept time by beating two sticks together or clapping their hands. Most of the children were between the ages of four and seven. Besides performing dances according to prescribed roles, they wailed at a small grave. Crying in unified fashion, the children concluded the ceremony.

The nine-year old explained to me that they had buried a dog. From what I had seen and heard, the accompanying ritual struck me as rather archaic. It was reminiscent of the footage of Sir Baldwin Spencer's filming of the local mortuary rites on wax cylinders, in 1912, that I had viewed a few months earlier in the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies in Canberra. The children's performance of death rites of the past raised questions about the transmission of cultural knowledge. Why did their actions leave such an archaic impression? At the same time it seemed that the dog burial provided the opportunity to mimic the adult-led mortuary rites (pukamani) they had frequently witnessed. The young leader of the children's ritual had earned himself a reputation with an innovative dance. Everyone had cheered and clapped excitedly as he performed. Undoubtedly, he would become a master of ceremony one day. Not only did he prove to be an excellent dancer, he was also able to memorize lyrics in the old language used for ritual purposes.