ROTH] DEATH AND MOURNING 645 
842. The first description of the Makuari ceremony is given by 
Van Berkel, who witnessed it some 250 years ago at a spot between 
the Demerara and Berbice. As I had to spend the night there, he 
says, my six Indians who were carrying my baggage came and asked 
permission to go in the meantime to a village called Abary. I asked 
my interpreter the reason; he gave me reply that at the said place, 
over three or four weeks before, there had died a captain whose 
bones, on account of his bravery, had been preserved according to 
custom and were now to be burnt. These little bones are of certain 
cut-off limbs; they are fingers, toes, etc., which, after the flesh has 
already been scraped off, are hung up for three or four weeks in the 
roof of the house to dry. This is the only part that is preserved so 
long, everything else which the deceased has left, such as ax, hatchet, 
knife, hoe, etc., being at the same time flung into the grave. Thus 
they imagine that he will have use for them on the journey. When, 
now, the said little bones have to be burnt, man and maid are bound 
to be present at the ceremony. My curiosity, which encouraged the 
interpreter to give me a minute description of the ceremony, im- 
pelled me to accompany them, and to see as an eyewitness what I could 
hardly believe from hearsay. My Indians immediately took up their 
positions in a file consisting of about 40 persons; and this was sur- 
rounded by another file, somewhat larger. Each one had in his 
hand something like a long whip, with which they struck one another, 
turn by turn, a terrible blow on the legs. The one to be beaten stands 
in the middle of the file, and having received his flogging steps into 
the room of the one who has given it to him. This takes place 
amidst a horrible shouting and yelling, as if they were challenging 
one another, saying to one “ Baja wadili” (I am a man) and to 
another “ Daibaja wadili” (I am also a man), and he who can not 
endure this whipping until the following morning is considered a 
coward and never dares come into any company. He who has a 
moment’s time goes meanwhile for a drink, because there is such a 
quantity of liquor that it can not be consumed. During this valorous 
performance the wives have to accompany them with theirs, to wit, 
they utter dismal wails and lamentations, and exclaim in the midst 
of their sobbing and sighing, “ Who is now going to plant bread, to 
hunt and fish, to catch crab, etc.,” for the widow, their sister (since 
they call even the white people their brothers and sisters), at the 
same time that they put the little bones of the deceased into the fire, 
so as to be reduced to ashes, which the wives must take care of. 
Meanwhile the men greet one another with cuts of the whip just 
as determinedly outside the house by the light of many fires which 
serve them for torches (BER, 25-26). The next reliable account of 
