. The cruise of the Marchesa to Kamschatka & New Guinea : with notices of Formosa, Liu-Kiu, and various islands of the Malay archipelago. Marchesa (Schooner yacht); Natural history; Natural history. XIII.] COOKING A CORPSE. 313 unpleasant but curious disease, which is commonly known as Cascado, are sometimes almost ornamental, and when seen at a little distance give the effect of tattooing. On the day after our arrival one of us had been greeted by a most horrible smell while passing a house in the village, but it was not until some little time afterwards—when it was of a yet more unbearab
. The cruise of the Marchesa to Kamschatka & New Guinea : with notices of Formosa, Liu-Kiu, and various islands of the Malay archipelago. Marchesa (Schooner yacht); Natural history; Natural history. XIII.] COOKING A CORPSE. 313 unpleasant but curious disease, which is commonly known as Cascado, are sometimes almost ornamental, and when seen at a little distance give the effect of tattooing. On the day after our arrival one of us had been greeted by a most horrible smell while passing a house in the village, but it was not until some little time afterwards—when it was of a yet more unbearable nature—that w^e learnt its origin. They were drying the corpse of a man over a fire—an operation which took nine days ! In a climate like that of New Guinea the effect of these funeral ceremonies is better unagined than described. The custom is apparently in vogue among several of the Papuan tribes, and in some cases, when the body is sufficiently dried and smoked, it is preserved in the house. The Ansus people have another method of disposing of it, and do not furnish their dwellings with their deceased relatives. On the tenth day the body in question was rowed across to Kaiari Island and placed upon a platform of sticks among the mangroves, where we had no difficulty in recognising its presence within a consideraljle radius for the remainder of our \\sit} A pole with a piece of rag fluttering at its extremity indicated the mouth of the creek where the bodies w^ere placed, and conches, shell necklaces, and other articles were hung up in the branches hard by. Koroivaar, or images of the deceased, are constructed as at Dorei Bay, some of them of most ludicrous appearance. ^ One that I was fortunate enough to ob- tain—whose likeness I here present to my reader—was especially so. The mop was imitated by Little ^ Mr. A^an Hasselt afterwards told us that some of the Arfak tribes also diy the bodies of their dead iu the above manner, and that it is the custom that the su
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