BARA BURIAL CUSTOMS. 



239 



are called fandroritam-patij (literally, " the stretching out of 

 the corpse "), and it seems that the corpse in its coffin is 

 pulled about, first in one direction and then in another, by 

 different parties of those following it, and is finally thrown 

 into some hollow in the woods where the moisture may soon 

 cause decomposition. 



With regard to the people of Ikongo, in the southern 

 Tanala, Mr. G. A. Shaw says : " They make no tombs, but 

 bury their dead in the forest, with no other mark than a 

 notched tree to keep the spot in remembrance. The carrying 

 of the body to its last resting-place is accompanied with 

 yelling and screaming ; but I saw no ostentatious mourning 

 and weeping, as with the B^tsileo. At certain places on th-e 

 road the body is placed on the ground, and a series of games 

 is commenced, in which wrestling and the spear-exercise form 

 a prominent part. Burying is called ' throwing away the 

 corpse.' " ■^'■ 



The Biira. — Of the Bkra tribes, Mr. Eichardson says : " At 

 death guns are fired, and a horrible wailing is set up ; a third 

 of the deceased's oxen must be killed before ' the ghost is laid.' 

 At the death of a king half of his oxen must be killed, and 

 his wives must cut off all their hair ; and the ghost is not laid 

 until his successor has captured a town, or has fought against 

 one to the shedding of blood, either his own or some one else's, 

 friend or foe. They dig no graves ; the corpse is put into 

 the ground naked, and stones are piled around and over it, 

 making an oblong structure from a foot to three or four feet 

 high. In the neighbourhood of the Isalo, the bodies are 

 taken and buried in the caves." This custom of cave-burial was 

 also followed by two of the chief divisions of the Betsileo. 

 " Natural crevices in the sides of enormous precipices were 

 selected, and made larger and more suitable by men let down 

 by ropes from above. The body was then lowered in the 

 same way, and deposited at the innermost extremity of the 

 hole, the entrance filled up with stones, and on the stones 

 were fixed the skulls of cattle killed during the funeral festi- 

 vities. In some of the bold, smooth, rocky heights dozens of 

 these tombs may be counted, each with its bleached ox-skulls 



* Antananarivo Annual, K^o, i. p. 66. 



