226 THROUGH ANGOLA 



sometimes near a pathway, and one can tell who 

 is buried in it from a basket or pot being placed 

 over a woman's grave, a staff over that of a man, 

 while the skulls of the animals he had killed adorn 

 the grave of the hunter. 



When a Chief dies there is considerable cere- 

 mony, much dancing or feasting, strangly mingled 

 with weeping, which goes on for days, while the 

 corpse is prepared for burial. Among some tribes 

 the body of a big Chief is smoke-dried over a slow 

 fire until it is mummified, then placed in a large 

 jar or coffin, or merely wrapped in cloth or skin 

 before being buried under the floor of the hut. 

 In other cases it is placed sitting in the hut till 

 decomposition sets in, and then buried. 



Some years ago, when hunting towards the 

 bend of the River Niger, I came across several 

 subterranean mausoleums, from which radiated 

 passages in which had once been placed the bodies 

 of slaves murdered to form company for their 

 Chief, and food as provision for his future. I 

 understood from the natives that the older burial- 

 places of the Angola Chiefs conform to the same 

 idea, and probably these tombs had room for the 

 slaves who died with them. 



Frequently the village where a Chief dies is 

 abandoned by his successor. I came across 

 several villages, especially in the country near 

 the Coanza, where a village well laid out on a 

 good site had been abandoned for this reason. 

 This is one of the causes of the constant transla- 

 tions of villages, which make map - making and 

 map-reading s:o hopeless in Angola. 



