662 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH, ANN. 38 
leaves and the corpse fixed in it in an almost sitting position, with 
head toward the west. All the objects which the women had brought 
were put into the grave. To these were added a drinking cup and 
the deceased’s knife. The man had died in a high fever, and having 
been tormented with thirst had asked his people to see that a flask 
of water should be supplied him in the grave, so that he might 
quench his thirst on the long journey to his friends who had gone 
before. The thongs were put into the grave so that, when on the 
road, if he should meet the kanaima who had caused his death, he 
might be able to tie him to a tree. The body was then covered with 
palm leaves, the grave closed in, to the accompaniment of crying 
and howling, and a large fire lighted on top. The hammock, how- 
ever, was not burned (as was the case with the Makusi woman at 
Nappi), but was hung up on a neighboring tree, where it was left 
to decay (SR, 1, 468). In the case of a Makusi boy who died at War- 
aputa, Essequibo, the spine, legs, and arms were broken and the body 
rolled up like a snake into a small metal box, obtained in barter. This 
was placed on a staging, under which a fire was kindled, in a hut in 
the forest, whither the deceased’s people would return in a year’s 
time to fetch the skeleton and bury it in their village (SR, 1, 325). 
864. Makusi female—The following account is abridged from the 
account given by Schomburek of what he witnessed at Nappi, on the 
upper Essequibo. The friends were crying in the house, and sur- 
rounding the hammock, wherein the corpse lay, they shook it, and 
after a while, in and between the waiting, they chanted eulogiums 
about the deceased. One had lost her best friend, another praised 
the fine cotton thread that she had woven, another the various ob- 
jects that she had possessed, each mourner ending her lamentation 
with asamanda! asamanda! (i. e., dead! dead!). All this time the 
men and the widower sat in silence. The son dug the trough-shaped 
grave some 3 or 4 feet deep in the house floor. This completed, the 
relatives cleared the house of everything, domestic effects, with 
hunting and fishing implements, inclusive, to an accompaniment of 
the wailings of the women. When the last article had passed out 
of the door, in came the piai. He proceeded to the head of the corpse, 
bent down to the left ear, and, shouting several words into it, retired. 
[Elsewhere in the case of another Makusi woman’s death, that of 
“ Kate,” by snake poison, there was a similar shouting by all the 
women of unintelligible words into the corpse’s ears (SR, m1, 269). 
With regard to this shouting, see footnote in WER, vr, page 156.] 
Relatives next loosened the hammock from the beams, lifted it with 
the corpse into the grave, which was covered at the bottom with 
palm leaves, and then drew the hammock out from underneath. 
Raging screams, worse than ever, now replaced the wailing. They 
