

1769 MEDICINE 169 



herbaceous plants as yield mild juices devoid of all acridity, 

 similar to the English chickweed, groundsel, etc. ; with these 

 they make fomentations, which they frequently apply to the 

 wound, taking care to cleanse it as often as possible ; the 

 patient all the time observing great abstinence. By this 

 method, if they have told me truly, their wounds are cured 

 in a very short time. As for their medicines we learned but 

 little concerning them ; they told us, and indeed freely, that 

 such and such plants were good for such and such distempers, 

 but it required a much better knowledge of the language 

 than we were able to obtain during our short stay to under- 

 stand the method of application. 



Their manner of disposing of their dead as well as the 

 ceremonies relating to their mourning are so remarkable 

 that they deserve a very particular description. As soon as 

 any one is dead the house is immediately filled with his 

 relations, who bewail their loss with loud lamentations, 

 especially those who are the farthest removed in blood from, 

 or who profess the least grief for, the deceased. The 

 nearer relations and those who are really affected spend 

 their time in more silent sorrow, while the rest join in 

 a chorus of grief at certain intervals, between which they 

 laugh, talk, and gossip as if totally unconcerned. This lasts 

 till daylight of the next day, when the body, being shrouded 

 in cloth, is laid upon a kind of bier on which it can con- 

 veniently be carried on men's shoulders. The priest's office 

 now begins ; he prays over the body, repeating his sentences, 

 and orders it to be carried down to the sea-side. Here his 

 prayers are renewed ; the corpse is brought down near the 

 water's edge, and he sprinkles water towards but not upon 

 it ; it is then removed forty or fifty yards from the sea, and 

 soon after brought back. This ceremony is repeated several 

 times. In the meantime a house has been built and a small 

 space of ground round it railed in ; in the centre of this house 

 are posts, upon which the bier, as soon as the ceremonies are 

 finished, is set. On these the corpse is to remain and 

 putrefy in state, to the no small disgust of every one whose 

 business requires him to pass near it. 



