﻿DO NOT NAME THE DECEASED. 409 



tortious of tlie body, and stamping continually on 

 the ground with his feet. He recounts in his song 

 the famous actions of the deceased; stanzas are 

 improvised by the other mourners, and sung to 

 the accompaniment of drums. A general cry of 

 grief is raised at the end of every verse, and 

 during its continuance the chief mourner pauses 

 from his exertions, and lets his head sink on his 

 breast. 



The clothing and rest of the property of the 

 deceased are divided among mourning relatives. 

 The body is then burnt, and the bones are collected 

 and interred by friends who are not of kin to the 

 deceased. At the end of the year the nearest re- 

 lative celebrates a festival to the memory of the 

 departed. From that time the dead man's name 

 must never be pronounced in the presence of that 

 relative, and he even changes the name by which 

 the deceased had been accustomed to address him. 

 If a relation transgresses this law, he is reproved ; 

 but if it be a more distant friend he is challeno;ed 

 by the kindred, and must buy himself off. Poor 

 men will sometimes endeavour to entrap a rich 

 relative into a breach of this custom, to obtain 

 the redemption money. The Kenaiyer suppose 

 that after death a man leads, in the interior of the 

 earth, where a sort of twilight reigns, a similar life 

 to his former one, but that he sleeps when those 



