. A naturalist's wanderings in the Eastern archipelago; a narrative of travel and exploration from 1878 to 1883. arous as any which are recorded asstrange or hurtful among savage peoples. AVhen a man dies, his children and relatives assemble tolament his departure, but I have never seen any outwardexpression or sign of mourning. A pig is killed, but I am indoubt whether it is given to the assembled people to eat orlaid with the dead body, which is then placed in a portion ofa prau fitted to the length of the individual, or within stripsof gaba-gaba, or stems of the sago palm pinned together. I
. A naturalist's wanderings in the Eastern archipelago; a narrative of travel and exploration from 1878 to 1883. arous as any which are recorded asstrange or hurtful among savage peoples. AVhen a man dies, his children and relatives assemble tolament his departure, but I have never seen any outwardexpression or sign of mourning. A pig is killed, but I am indoubt whether it is given to the assembled people to eat orlaid with the dead body, which is then placed in a portion ofa prau fitted to the length of the individual, or within stripsof gaba-gaba, or stems of the sago palm pinned together. If itis a person of some consequence, such as an Orang Kaya, anornate and decorated prau-shaped coffin is specially made. Thisis then enveloped in calico, and placed either on the top of arock by the margin of the sea at a short distance from thevillage, or on a high pile-platform erected on the shore about IN T1M0R-LAUT. 323 low-tide mark. On the top of the coffin-lid are erected tailflags, and the figures of men playing gongs, shooting guns, andgesticulating wildly to frighten away evil influences from the. GRAVE OF A NATIVE CHIEF. sleeper. Sometimes the platform is erected on the shore abovehigh-water mark, and near it is stuck in the ground a tallbamboo full of palm-wine; and suspended over a bamboo rail 324 A NATURALISTS WANDERINGS are bunches of sweet potatoes for the use of the dead mansNitu. Two days after the burial, the family go to bathe andwash their hair; and after two days more they search forten fishes and one tortoise wherewith to give a feast, which isfinished with siri and libations of palm-wine. When the bodyis quite decomposed, his son, or one of the family, disintersthe skull and deposits it on a little platform in his house, inthe gable opposite the fire-place, while to ward off evil fromhimself he carries about with him the atlas and axis bones ofits neck in his luvu, or siri-holder. The bodies of those whodie in war or by a violent death are buried, and n
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
