In Henry Lawson’s great story, ‘The Bush Undertaker’, an old shepherd—isolated, eccentric, if not frankly rather mad—is collecting bones and other relics when he comes across a corpse. He can tell by the state of the boots that the man was a “sundowner”. A rum bottle by his side tells more of the story. He concludes that he has stumbled on the mortal remains of his long lost mate, Brummy. He carries the body back to his shack with the intention of giving Brummy a decent burial but this weird funeral procession is stalked by what the old man thinks must be “a flock” of goannas but which he later realizes is simply one determined "thunderin' up-jumped" predator following the body.
Like the drover’s wife in another famous Lawson story, the old man resolves to sit up all night to watch for the goanna. Eventually he shoots it as it comes crawling over the ridge pole: and he watches it die in "violent convulsions" on the ground just as the drover’s wife watched the snake burn in the fireplace after she and her children had killed it. With this mystery solved, the old shepherd turns to the task of burying Brummy but can’t work out what kind of ritual would be in order.
"Theer oughter be somethin' sed", muttered the old man. "Theer oughter be some sort o’ sarmin." He buries Brummy, muttering now and then, "I am the rassaraction", then, with the job done, he hesitates, trying to remember what “oughter be" said. He removed his hat, placed it carefully on the grass, held his hands out from his sides and a little to the front, drew a long deep breath, and said with a solemnity that greatly disturbed [his dog] Five Bob: “Hashes ter hashes, dus ter dus, Brummy—an'—an' in hopes of a great an' gerlorious rassaraction!" Then he collects his gear and walks wearily away. And the sun sank again on the grand Australian bush—the nurse and tutor of eccentric minds, the home of the weird.
The old man knows that buried back in his past is a formula, a way of behaving about the dead and their burial, and that this ritual is connected in some way to the supernatural. But he can’t remember either the form of the ceremony, or its gestures, or its words. The desperate attempt to remember produces fragments which are deeply