136 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



" women are allowed to beat the men, the latter not 

 " bemg permitted to retahate. The damsels finally 

 " became so bold that they stormed the camp." 



Of ceremonies connected with birth, if any take 

 place, we saw nothing at all. The only marriage 

 ceremony that took place during our stay in the country 

 has been referred to on a preceding page. 



Deaths were unfortunately more frequent, and if 

 they were not accompanied by any elaborate ceremonial 

 they were, at all events, widely advertised, sometimes 

 indeed even before the event itself. A wretched man 

 became very ill at Parimau in August, and it was soon 

 evident that his days were numbered. Members of 

 his family carried him out of the house and laid him in 

 the sunlight for a time, and then took him back into the 

 house again at least half a dozen times a day. Now 

 and again, when he dozed, they set up the dreadful 

 w^ail that is customary w^hen a person dies, and he had 

 to wake up and assure them of his continued life. At 

 night his hut was crowded with sympathetic watchers, 

 and with the smoke of the fire and much tobacco the 

 atmosphere must have been nearly insupportable. As 

 our own house was distant only about forty yards across 

 the river we could plainly hear his laboured breathing, 

 and when it grew softer they wailed again until the 

 wonder was that he did not die. On the third day 

 they dug a grave for him, but still he lingered on, and 

 it was not until the fifth night, when a tremendous 

 flood came down and swept away the village so that 

 all the people had to take refuge in their canoes, that he 

 died. 



