70 THE AKoRIGINES OF PORTO RICO [eth. ann. 26 



others they left within, placing the corpse in a hammock with water 

 and bread. In both cases the house was deserted and shunned by the 

 relatives. They believed that after death the deceased went to a 

 valley (Coaibai) where their ancestors lived and where they would 

 have many wives, plenty to eat," and all kinds of pleasure. 



Oviedo has given an account of the manner of burial of the dead, 

 especially of caciques, which is instructive in a comparative study of 

 the Antilleans and certain South American tribes. When a cacique 

 died one of his wives was sometimes l)uried alive with the corpse, 

 bowls of water and food, such as cassava bread and fruits, being placed 

 with her in the grave At the interment of the Haitian cacique 

 Behechio two wives were voluntarily buried alive with him. Wife 

 burial was not always practised, the customary method of interment 

 being to bind the body with bandages of woven cloth and to place it in 

 a grave, with the jewels or treasures most prized by the cacique in life. 



In order that the earth might not touch the corpse it was customary 

 to make a crypt of sticks, in which the dead was seated in a decorated 

 chair called a duho, after which the grave was filled in with earth 

 above the wood and branches. For from fifteen to twenty days after 

 burial the relatives and other persons, both male and female, sang 

 dirges over the grave, and caciques of the neighboring territory came 

 to do honor to the deceased. The familj' divided the property among 

 the strangers who recited dirges and songs commemoratiAe of im- 

 portant events in the life of the dead, telling of the battles he had 

 fought and of other worthy deeds, the mortuary songs being accom- 

 panied by the dances called (xreitus. Among the Haitians the dead 

 were inhumed, mounds of earth being raised over the graves. 



From the similarity of the people of the two islands it would be 

 supposed that the same custom was ])ractised in Porto Rico, and this 

 archeology has demonstrated. Mortuary ofl'erings have been found 

 in mounds as well as in caves, and later it will be shown that these 

 mounds and cemeteries are situated near certain walled inclosures tiiat 

 are called by the country people j?;<yo.y dehola or hateijx ("ball courts"). 



Considerable light is shed on the nature of the mortuary dances of 

 the West Indians by a comparative study of burial ceremonies among 

 their supposed kindred living along the Orinoco river in South 

 America, our knowledge of whose mortuary rites is more detailed than 

 that which has been recorded by the earh' historians of the West 

 Indies. Gumilla in 1745 gave a description of the elaborate mortuar}' 

 dances held by the Saliva near tumuli, on the Orinoco, at the death 

 of their caciques. The Antilleans also appear to have performed com- 

 plicated mortuarv dances, or areitos, in the so-called ball courts or 

 dance places and near the adjacent tumuli outside the inclosure. 



aTlie deiul wvvv I)c4ieved to live on ji fruit about the size of a quince, called nuanahana (sour-sop). 



