102 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHlfOLOGY [bull. 71 



word tlie}' gave him a little female slave, whom they liad resolved 

 to put to death but for his prohil)ition; but to keep their cursed 

 custom without it being perceived, the woman chief, whom they 

 call Ouachil Tamail, Sun women (who is always the sister and not 

 the wife of the great chief), persuaded him to retire to a distant 

 village so as not to have his head split with the noise they would 

 make in a ceremony where all were to take part. Mr. de Montigni, 

 not suspecting anything, believed her and withdrew, but in his 

 absence they put to death those whom they believed to be necessary 

 to go to cook and wait on the chief in the other world." (Gravier, 

 (1), pp. 140-143.) 



The second account given by Swanton, that claimed to have been 

 witnessed by Penicaut in 1704. follows: 



" It happened in our time that the grand chieftainess Noble being 

 dead, we saw the burial ceremony, which is indeed the most horrible 

 tragedy that one can witness. It made myself and all my comrades 

 tremble with horror. She [i. e. the great female Sun] was a chieftain- 

 ess Xoble in her own right. Her husband, who was not at all noble, 

 was immediately strangled by the first boy she had had by him, to ac- 

 company his wife into the great village, where they believe that they 

 go. After such a fine beginning they put outside of the cabin of the 

 great chief all that was there. As is customary they made a kind of 

 triumphal car in the cabin, where they placed the dead woman and 

 her strangled husband. A moment later, they brought 12 little dead 

 infants, who had been strangled, and whom they placed around the 

 dead woman. It was their fathers and mothers who brought them 

 there, by order of the eldest of the dead chieftainess's children, and 

 who then, as grand chief, commands to have die to honor the funeral 

 rites of his mother as many persons as he wishes. They had 14 scaf- 

 folds prepared in the public square, which they ornamented with 

 branches of trees and with cloth covered with pictures. On each scaf- 

 fold a man placed himself who was going to accompany the defunct 

 to the other world. They stood on these scaffolds surrounded by their 

 nearest relatives; they are sometimes warned more than ten years 

 before their death. It is an honor for their relatives. Ordinarily 

 they have offered to die during the life of the defunct, for the good 

 will which they bear him, and they themselves have tied the cord with 

 which they are strangled. They are dressed in their finest clothing, 

 with a large shell in the right hand, and the nearest relative — for ex- 

 ample, if it is the father of a family who dies, his oldest son — walks 

 behind him bearing the cord under his arm and a war club in his 

 right hand. He makes a frightful cry which they call the death cry. 

 Then all these unfortunate victims every quarter of an hour descend 

 from their scaffolds and unite in the middle of the square, where they 

 dance together before the temple and before the house of the dead 

 female chief, when they remount their scaffolds to resume their 



