ROTH] DEATH AND MOURNING 659 
their master (BER, 134). The same custom prevailed among the 
Islanders (sec. 860). 
859. The following is the account given by Barreére of the Cayenne 
Indians, presumably also of the Carib stock: Generally speaking, as 
soon as a person dies, everybody—men, women, parents, friends, 
children—collects at the karbet, and there they shed bitter tears, but 
this is chiefly the business of the nearest female relatives who wail in 
harmony or rather, while singing, address the corpse. These mourn- 
ers, usually squatting on their heels, pass both hands slowly over 
the body from top to toe, and reproach him for having passed away. 
“ Weren’t you satisfied with us?” say some, and “ What have we 
done to you that you leave us like this?” say others. They also add: 
“ You were so good a hunter!” “ You were great at catching fish and 
crabs!” “ You were so smart at clearing a field!” and a thousand 
similar little things. They thus review his whole life. The Indians 
repeat word for word what these mourners say about the deceased. 
You can imagine what the symphony is like! They then carry the 
corpse, adorned in all its ornaments, to the great karbet, which is the 
cemetery common to those of the same nation. They make a circu- 
lar pit, not too deep, and in it, squatting in the foetal position and 
enveloped within a hammock, they place the body. Some earth is 
thrown on top, and upon this a fire is kept alight for some 15 to 20 
days. . . . The nearest relatives and best friends go into mourning. 
They cut the hair of their head very short and wear no finery, some 
nations going so far as not even to wear a lap at these times. They 
strictly observe close retirement. The women especially keep out of 
the way, and only come out very early in the morning, or late at 
night, in order to go and cry at the grave. This goes on for a long 
time. They religiously abstain during this period from eating cer- 
tain meats, refrain from cutting large timbers, and pursue other 
practices of this nature (PBA, 228-229). 
860. On the islands there are the records of de la Borde, as well 
as of Rochefort, as to the death and burial ceremonies, and these 
accounts fairly agree. Thus, according to de la Borde, when a 
Carib dies the women wash him, comb, and rub ruku on him; place 
him in a hammock and paint his lips and cheek with vermilion. 
Afterwards he is wrapped up in his hammock and buried. The hole 
is dug in the hut; he is placed in a sitting attitude, resting on his 
heels or with the arms across the chest, with two weights on the eyes 
that he may not see his parents and not make them ill (WER, v1, sec. 
253). They make fire round the tomb to purify the air and that the 
deceased may not catch cold. All his goods are buried, a man covers 
him with a board, and the women throw earth on it. If the deceased 
owned a Negro the latter is killed in order to serve his master in the 
