DIFFERENT MODES OF BUKIAL. 559 



though well acquainted with the use of fire, know no way of 

 kindling it. Consequently, they take great pains to keep it 

 always burning ; and if by any mischance it should be extin- 

 guished, are obliged to get a fresh light from some neighbour- 

 ing tribe. 



There is, again, scarcely any conceivable way in which the 

 dead could be disposed of, which has not been adopted in some 

 part of the world. Among some races the corpse is simply 

 buried ; by others it is burned. Some of the North American 

 Indians expose their dead on scaffolds in the branches of trees. 

 Some tribes deposit them in sacred rivers ; others in the sea. 

 Among the Sea Dyaks, the dead chief is placed in his war 

 canoe, with his favourite weapons and principal property, and 

 is thus turned adrift. Other tribes gave their dead to be food 

 for wild beasts ; and others preferred to eat them themselves. 

 Some Brazilian tribes drink the dead.* The Tarianas and 

 Tucanos, and some other tribes, about a month after the 

 funeral, disinter the corpse, which is then much decomposed, 

 and put it in a great pan or oven over the fire, till all the 

 volatile parts are driven off with a most horrible odour, leaving 

 only a black carbonaceous mass, which is pounded into a fine 

 powder, and mixed in several large conches of caxiri : this is 

 drunk by the assembled company, under the full belief that 

 the virtues of the deceased will thus be transmitted to the 

 drinkers. The Cobeus also drink the ashes of the dead in the 

 same manner. 



Indeed, if there are two possible ways of doing a thing, we 

 may be sure that some tribes will prefer one, and some the 

 other. It seems natural to us that descent should go in the 

 male line ; but there are very many races in which it is traced 

 from the mother, not the father. The husband or father seems 

 to us to be the natural head of the family ; in Tahiti the re- 

 verse is the case, and the son enters at once into the property 

 * Wallace, Travels on the Amazon, p. 498. 



