324 



A NATUSALIST'S WANDERINGS 



are bunches of sweet potatoes for the use of the dead man's 

 Nitu. Two days after the burial, the family, go to bathe and 

 wash their hair; and after two days more they search for 

 ten fishes and one tortoise wherewith to give a feast, which is 

 finished with siri and libations of palm-wine. When the body 

 is quite decomposed, his son, or one of the family, disinters 

 the skull and deposits it on a little platform in his house, in 

 the gable opposite the fire-place, while to ward off evil from 

 himself he carries about with him the atlas and axis bones of 

 its neck in his luvu, or siri-holder. The bodies of those who 

 die in war or by a violent death are buried, and not placed on 



CARVED SUSPENSORY CONTEIVAXOES. 



rocks or on a platform, where only such as die naturally are 

 deposited ; and if his head has been captured a cocoa-nut is 

 placed in the grave to represent the missing member, and to 

 . deceive and satisfy his sp1nt. 



I am doubtful if these rites are always faithfully performed, 

 for on walking along the shore I have often seen, where the 

 cofSn has fallen to pieces, complete crania on the rocks where 

 the body had been deposited, while occipital and frontal bones, 

 mingling with jaws of pigs, lay quite uncared for on the shore. 

 The, dead man's spirit, they say, goes to Nusa Nitu, or Mara- 

 matta — " an island near to Ceram," which the navigator passes 

 fearful and vigilant, believing he hears strange unsiren sounds 

 wafted out to him on the sea, and is thankful when the Home 

 of the Spirits has sunk down in the horizon behind him. 



