sometimes weddings, were undertaken by the hui and district associations. The largest Chinese cemeteries in the Riverina were located within the boundaries of the European cemeteries, and at Wagga, Albury, Tumut and Deniliquin, the burning towers are still in existence. At Adelong the largest Chinese cemetery was near the main Chinese camp at Upper Adelong. The site was gazetted in 1875, though it had been in use some years before that. There are 18 exhumed graves at the site. Another smaller cemetery with at least seven exhumed graves is located at Middle Adelong. The importance of traditional Chinese burial Chinese burning tower, cemetery, Tumut, New South Wales. customs, including the practice Barry McGowan, 2009 of feng shui, is evident at the upper and middle Adelong cemeteries in the location and orientation of the graves. There is also very strong evidence of ritual exhumation.168 The earliest account of a Chinese burial at Tumut was in November 1881. The correspondent stated that the dead man, Ah Min from Tumut Plains, had several mates who carefully performed all the last rites in the Chinese fashion. The body was placed in the coffin outside his hut, and a bonfire made of his bedding and clothes. Cash for the undertaker was paid , and along the road Chinese men dropped small bits of coloured paper. At the grave Prayers were said, a few small coins deposited in the grave, coffin lowered, a quantity of tinsel paper burnt, and a cooked fowl, a tin of rice, and a flask of brandy were placed upon the coffin. Each man then seized a shovel and quickly filled in the grave.169
In June 1882 it was the turn of a ‘well to do Chinese’, Chee Sing, a partner with Ah Limm of Tumut Plains, who died of pulmonary consumption. His funeral was attended largely by Chinese men, and several buggies were filled with mourners.170 Grace Ching recalls that her father Dang Charles Doon prepared and performed burial ceremonies, which involved incense, paper money and the roasting of a pig. The ceremonies usually happened on the actual burial day, because the men had saved money for the ceremony throughout their
Smith, ‘Hidden Dragons. The archaeology of mid-to late-nineteenth-century Chinese communities in south-eastern New South Wales’, pp.146-151. 168
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169
Gundagai Times, 4 November 1881.
170
Gundagai Times, 20 June 1882.