I never actually saw any aboriginal funeral service and only know what I was told. But I found the following description written by a reverend Dr Lang in the 1840s. Dr Lang apparently gained his information from an escaped convict called Davies who lived with aboriginals for seventeen years and seems to have gained an intimate knowledge of the subject.
When the dead body of a person who has either fallen in battle, or had died a natural death, is to be subjected to this horrid process, it is stretched out on its back, and a fire lighted on each side of it. Firebrands are then passed carefully over the whole body, till its entire surface is thoroughly scorched. The cuticle, consisting of the epidermis or scarfskin, and the reticulum mucosum, or mucous membrane of Malpighi, in which the colouring matter of the skin is contained, is then peeled off, sometimes with pointed sticks, sometimes with mussel-shells, and sometimes even with the finger nails, and then placed in a basket or dilly to be preserved. And as the cutis vera, or true skin, is, in all varieties of the human family, perfectly white, the corpse then appears of that colour all over; and I have no doubt whatever, that it is this peculiar and ghastly appearance which the dead body of a black man uniformly assumes under this singular treatment, and with which the aborigines must be quite familiar wherever the practice obtains, that has suggested to them the idea that white men are merely their forefathers returned to live again; the supposition that particular white men are particular deceased natives, known to the Aborigines when alive, being merely this idea carried out to its natural result, under the influence of a heated imagination. There is reason also to believe, e converso, that wherever this idea prevails, the practice in which it has originated—that of peeling off the cuticle previous to the other parts of the process to be described hereafter—is still prevalent also, or has been so, at least, very recently.
After the dead body has been subjected to the process of scorching with firebrands, it becomes so very stiff as almost to be capable of standing upright of itself. If the subject happens to be a male, the subsequent part of the process is performed by females, but if a female, it is performed by males. The body is then extended upon its face, and certain parties, who have been hitherto sitting apart in solemn silence (for the whole affair is conducted with the stillness of a funeral solemnity), step forward, and with a red pigment, which shows very strongly upon the white ground, draw lines down the back and along the arms from each shoulder down to the wrist. These parties then retire, and others who have previously been sitting apart in solemn silence, step forward in-like manner, and with sharp shells cut through the cutis vera, or true skin, along these lines. The entire skin of the body is then stripped off in one piece, including the ears and the finger-nails, with the scalp, but not the skin of the face which is cut off. This whole process is performed with incredible expedition, and the skin is then stretched out on two spears to dry, the process being sometimes hastened, by lighting a fire under the skin. Previous to this operation, however, the skin is restored to its natural colour, be being anointed all over with a mixture of grease and charcoal.
When the body has thus been completely flayed, the dissectors step forward and cut it up. The legs are first cut off at the thighs, then each arm at the shoulder, and last of all the head; not a drop of blood appearing during the process. The larger sections are then subdivided and portioned out among the expectant multitude, each of whom takes his portion to one or other of the fires, and when half-roasted devours it with great apparent relish. The flesh of the natives in the northern country generally is very fat, and that of children, which are never skinned like adults, particularly so. Davies has often seen a black fellow holding his portion of his fellow-creature’s dead body to the fire in one hand, on a branch or piece of wood stuck through it like a fork or skewer, with a shell or hollow piece of bark under it in the other, to receive the melted fat that dropped from it, and drinking it up when he had caught a sufficient quantity to form a draught, with the greatest gusto, In this way the body disappears with incredible rapidity, the bones being very soon cleaned of every particle of flesh.
The bones are then carefully collected, and placed in a dilly or basket, and forwarded by a trusty person to all the neighbouring tribes, in each of which they are mourned over successively, for a time, by those to whom the deceased was known. They are then returned to the tribe to which the deceased belonged, and carried about by his relatives for months, or even years, till at length they are deposited permanently in a hollow tree, from which it is esteemed unpardonable sacrilege to remove it.