306 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 
The New Guinea native is not renowned for cleanliness at the 
best of times, and it does not require a very imaginative mind to 
understand that when a man or a woman blackens the body on 
the death of a relative, and for many months, sometimes ten 
or more, does not allow a drop of water to come on it, it is not 
as pleasant to the olfactory nerves as some of Rimmel’s prepara- 
tions when the time arrives to discard the mourning dress, and 
wash off the accumulated layers of filth. 
In the case of all mourners, on the day of the feast the fast- 
ing from certain foods is at an end, and also the necessity to 
continue wearing the outward evidences of mourning, but in the 
case of a widow, or a widower, after the body has been washed 
and anointed with the oil from the cocoanut, it is again 
blackened, and this condition is maintained for two more years 
or harvests. 
The following proceedings took place at a recent feast on 
Tubetube :—A man had died at the beginning of this year, and 
the gathering was on account of this. The widow of the de- 
ceased and her clan provided the sago, cocoanuts, yams, pigs, 
and fish for the feast. Into this, as it does into so many of 
the customs of the Tubetubeans, the totem enters. The hus- 
band and wife never have the same emblem for their totem, 
as this is strictly tabooed by this people ; no man and woman of 
the same clan can marry. Thus the members of the widow’s 
clan referred to above were separate and distinct from the clan 
of her deceased husband. This has an important bearing on the 
proceedings at the feast or gathering which terminates the 
period of mourning. When a man marries a woman here he 
has, in connection with the marriage customs, to perform cer- 
tain work for the relatives or clan of his wife. At the funeral 
feast of the husband the widow and her clan provide all the 
things, as stated above, but they, the providers, are tabooed 
from partaking of this food; it belongs to the members of 
the totem to which the deceased formerly belonged, and is re- 
garded as an equivalent for the work previously performed by 
him for his widow’s clan. 
The yain trophies had been built by this people around the 
grave of the deceased, but, by request, the old chief used his 
influence with the people to get them to give up this part of 
the custom, and at his direction the trophies were made in the 
village and around the house of the widow. There were about 
thirty of these trophies, the foundation being made by a large 
basket of yams; round the basket, sticks from 3 to 4 ft. in 
length were driven into the ground about 4 or 5 in. apart, and 
a piece of bark passed round the outside of these, like a string 
or rope, and fastened near the top, thus binding the whole 
together, and keeping the sticks or frame from falling when 
the yams were piled upon those in the basket, and the space 
