THE ISLAND OF NIAS AND ITS PEOPLE. 239 



is introduced to the ancestral gods, and is expected to take hold 

 of the palm-leaves with which they are decorated. 



The first thought when a person becomes critically ill is to 

 prepare his coffin, a hollowed log closed with a plank. The 

 nearest relatives prepare food for him, and receive his farewell. 

 On the approach of the last moment, the dying man's eldest son 

 lays his mouth against the father's, to receive his spirit, which 

 is believed to come from the mouth in the shape of a pebble. If 

 the man has no son, the spirit is received in the money-purse. 

 It is afterward hung upon the ancestral image which is prepared 

 to represent the deceased, and is supposed to enter it. When re- 

 ceived by the son, it is thought to help make him a wise and 

 valiant man. After death, mourning is begun with the beating 

 of drums and the firing of guns, if powder can be got. The nose 

 of the deceased is closed, his chin is bound, and his great toes 

 and his forefingers and thumbs are tied together, to facilitate 

 the escape of the immortal part. A dance, not unlike the mar- 

 riage-dance, is accompanied by chants reciting that the deceased 

 is not really dead, but is only gone away, although he will never 

 return from beyond the seas to the present world. The funeral 

 feast is marked by the number of swine that are slaughtered for 

 it, and this appears to be the question that most occupies the 

 minds of the public when a death is announced. While the cof- 

 fin is being brought down into the throng of relatives, some 

 may be inquiring whether there are any circumstances to indicate 

 murder ; others may be holding before the deceased articles that 

 he highly prized, in order to outbid any persons hostile to the 

 family who might try to entice his spirit away from them. 



A pot of chicken and rice is pushed into the coffin for the 

 use of the deceased in the other world. The coffin having been 

 laid in the grave, the stem of a certain plant is inserted so as to 

 stick up through the surface of the ground and form a way of 

 exit for the niokomoko or relic of the heart, which is expected 

 to rise from the grave in the shape of a little spider — this only 

 in case the deceased has left posterity. While the dead are usu- 

 ally buried as soon after death as possible, if the family have not 

 at hand the swine required for a suitable feast the body may be 

 kept in the house, in a tightly-closed coffin, for a year. 



Food is set at the foot of the house-thatch twice a day for a 

 few days after the funeral. The idols which the deceased had 

 had made on the occasion of his sickness, and the articles he had 

 used, are placed by the grave, so that the ghost shall not return 

 to the house for them. A wooden image of the deceased is made, 

 and his immortal part is invited by the priest to take its abode 

 in it. 



An amusing ceremony is that of the recovery of the moko- 



