204 FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF 



No ceremony attends the interment at the grave, but 

 a pig is killed in the village, and the rite is terminated 

 much in the manner of an Irish wake. This practice 

 of burying property was practised by the Indians of 

 North America, and probably by those of the southern 

 division of that continent, and must have originated in 

 a belief in the future existence of the deceased person, 

 and that he would require these things in another 

 state ; but at present, as far as I could learn, these 

 people have no idea of the sublime belief of the soul's 

 immortality ; and though some of them have asserted 

 that the spirits of deceased persons wander amongst 

 the mountains, the more frequent answer was, that 

 they knew nothing of their fate. The memory of a 

 person, and the respect paid to him, is not supposed to 

 be obliterated at the festival on the day of his burial, 

 but, at long and uncertain intervals, other feasts are 

 made, when some of the relics of the deceased, as a por- 

 tion of his clothes or weapons, are treated with a place 

 of ceremony at the banquet, and looked upon with 

 great respect. The whole of these and their other fes- 

 tivals end in the same manner. On account of the 

 ignorant custom of burying such valuable property as 

 above described with the bodies of their deceased 

 relations, it frequently happens that a father, unfortunate 

 in his family, is, by the death of his children, reduced 

 to poverty. 



On one occasion, the Europeans of Sarawak having 

 been invited to be present at one of these wakes 



