FUNERAL RITES OF LEMBAS 103 



assumed that its spirit had left, it was carried to 

 the grave in a hammock, wrapped in blue cloth, 

 with food in its hands and fetishes on the body. 

 When the burial was over and the grave adorned, 

 the mourners came back to feast, dance, and sing 

 their last farewell to the dead, whose house they 

 now burned. 



Widows were compelled to purify themselves 

 by purgation and bathing, and isolate themselves 

 in huts in the forest for the space of two moons, 

 before they could re-marry, which they rarely 

 failed to do, especially if they had children, who 

 were looked upon as a source of wealth and a 

 dowry. 



Among these Cunhinga people circumcision 

 rites were practised within a year of birth ; and 

 after the child had been cured, it was carried to 

 the fetish hut of some particular spirit, to whose 

 protection it was committed. 



Like their neighbours, these people of the 

 Cunhinga were very superstitious, consulted their 

 gods before any important event, and made 

 sacrifices, even of human victims, to propitiate 

 the spirits they feared. Their most potent 

 weapons were arrows poisoned with leaves of a 

 plant, which caused rapid muscular paralysis ; 

 and of their beverages, one, made by infusing and 

 fermenting the wood of a tree called " inka," was 

 strongly intoxicating. 



