138 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



men who had carried it walked down to the river, shouted 

 once in unison, and then, having received an answering 

 shout from the men in the village, one of them threw 

 a small triangular piece of wood out into the stream. 

 In the meantime the famil}^ of the dead man dis- 

 appeared into the jungle, from which they soon emerged 

 quite naked, plastered all over with mud and decorated 

 with wisps of climbing plants. The next two days 

 w^ere spent in digging a grave and making a coffin 

 shaped like a small canoe ; this however was found 

 to be too small and was not used. On the third day 

 the body was placed in the grave, and an ornamental 

 post placed in the ground at each end, but contrary 

 to our hopes (for the state of that man was becoming 

 very offensive) they did not fill in the grave. They 

 merely covered the body wnth leaves and turned it 

 over every day. At intervals the widow, quite naked, 

 save for a plastering of mud, crawled on hands and knees 

 from her hut, which was less than five yards distant, 

 and visited the grave. In a few days a providential 

 flood came and filled up the grave and put an end to what 

 had become for us an almost intolerable nuisance. 



Both at Wakatimi and at Parimau our camp com- 

 manded a good view of the native village, and a death 

 always provided us with the mild excitement of wonder- 

 ing in what new way they would celebrate the event. 

 On one occasion when a woman died, the bereaved 

 husband and another man walked slowly down to the river 

 and waded out into about three feet of water. There 

 the widower submitted to being washed all over by 

 the other man and finally to being held under water by 



