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THE INDIANS OF GUIANA. 69 
time, this being their manner of wearing mourning. They 
make an incessant howling and moaning until the body 
is laid in the grave, to which they invite a number of 
men and women, The corpse is previously washed, the 
head rubbed with oil, put into a cotton hammock, and 
-lowered into a large round pit or hole which has been 
dug with rather a little hollow at the bottom, and 
covered with Manicole laths, so that the corpse is placed 
at least two feet from the ground in a sitting position, 
His furniture such as cotton laps, hunter’s horn, scissors, 
knives, looking glasses (which they get from us by 
barter) with his bow and arrows are buried with him, 
-to which some of his friends add the like presents, 
to be by him made use of in the other world, or to be 
exchanged for meat and drink. After that his friends 
place a board over the grave, in order that the earth 
shall not touch the deceased, and other women cover 
it with leaves and. then with earth, whilst those women 
who remain during this solemnity begin to cry and 
moan most miserably, joined with other lamentations. 
They bury the corpse with all that the deceased left 
behind him in his own house or hut, which only a year 
after they re-inhabit, but should many die at once 
in their village, they depart from it, saying the devil has 
punished the place. To those interments all the neigh- 
bouring Medicos are invited, and plenty of Pernou, and 
Berria, or Bassia is poured out to them. After this they 
place themselves in two circles, holding in each hand a 
whip made of Pita, with which they alternately lash round 
each other’s legs, so that between the knees and ancles 
you can hardly place a finger without touching a bloody 
- stripe, whilst the women with dismal screaming and mourn- 
