XIII.] 



COOKING A CORPSE. 



313 



unpleasant but curious disease, which is commonly known as 

 Cascado, are sometimes almost ornamental, and when seen at a 

 little distance give the effect of tattooing. 



On the day after our arrival one of us had been greeted by a 

 most horrible smell while passing a house in the village, but it was 

 not until some little time afterwards — when it was of a yet more 

 unbearable nature — that w^e learnt its origin. They were drying 

 the corpse of a man over a fire — an operation which took nine days ! 

 In a climate like that of New Guinea the effect of these funeral 

 ceremonies is better unagined than described. The custom is 

 apparently in vogue among several of the Papuan tribes, and in 

 some cases, when the body is sufficiently dried and smoked, it is 

 preserved in the house. The Ansus people have another method of 

 disposing of it, and do not furnish their dwellings with their 

 deceased relatives. On the tenth day the body in question was 

 rowed across to Kaiari Island and placed upon a platform of sticks 

 among the mangroves, where we had 

 no difficulty in recognising its presence 

 within a consideraljle radius for the 

 remainder of our \\sit} A pole with 

 a piece of rag fluttering at its extremity 

 indicated the mouth of the creek where 

 the bodies w^ere placed, and conches, 

 shell necklaces, and other articles were 

 hung up in the branches hard by. 



Koroivaar, or images of the deceased, 

 are constructed as at Dorei Bay, some 

 of them of most ludicrous appearance. ^ 

 One that I was fortunate enough to ob- 

 tain — whose likeness I here present 

 to my reader — was especially so. The mop was imitated by Little 



^ Mr. A^an Hasselt afterwards told us that some of the Arfak tribes also diy the 

 bodies of their dead iu the above manner, and that it is the custom that the sub- 

 stance which drips from the corpse in the process should be tasted by the widow, 

 under pain of death ! 



KOROWAAR. 



