CUSTOMS AND GOVERNMENT. 27 I 



guests who cannot swallow it, are killed. When the body is dried, which takes about a month, 

 in a position with the knees tightly drawn-up and the head pressed dovvn on the chest, 

 a basket of palm leaves is plaited closely round it, and the body thus packed up, biata sidiigè, 

 is suspended inside the house on the wall. In the house at Mapâr (fig. 71) two such packages 

 were hanging breast high on the inside of the wall, immediately to the left, near the front 

 door (the side towards the top of the hill), and one to the right when entering by the back 

 door, ail of them therefore in the part of the house where the unmarried men live. They 

 were ± go cm. in length, and 45 cm. thick, and absolutely without smell. In the house at 

 Inagôi such packages were suspended in corresponding places. It is characteristic that the 

 mode of matting the bodies of the dead in this squatting position, has become knowu 

 of so many places in New Guinea, situated far from each other ; e. g. with regard to K. W. 

 Land (NACHRICHTEN [1889, 8]), of a village situated on the slopes of the Finisterre Moun- 

 tains, where the bodies were carefully placed in safety from the Europeans, who came to 

 pass the night in the houses. SCHELLONG [1889, 22] also refers to the sewing up of bodies 

 in mats. HORST [1889, 232] saw at Ansus, on Jâpen, hanging inside the house, the dried 

 body, wrapped up in pièces of cloth, of the father of the village chief, probably the same, 

 which was already reported a good many years ago by ROBIDÉ VAN DER Aa [1879, 234]. 

 In British N. G., D*ALBERTIS [1880, II, 10 1] found the body of a man being matted in a 

 stretched position, a woman squatting, like the bodies in the small cages, (2 1 /, X 3 X '/a feet), 

 mentioned in Annual REPORT [1897 — 98, 22, PI. 14]. 



Burying in the ground is also often done with the body in a squatting position, 

 as with the Ajambori (Van DER GOES [1858, 147]), wrapped up in a mat; WlLKEN [1887, 

 619 — 621] supposes a connection between this position and the squatting position of the 

 human figure represented on the korwàrs. 



Between P c . D' Urville and the Netherl. German boundary this position is, I think, 

 unknown. Concerning Humboldt Bay, I quote that the people of Ingrau put their dead in a 

 stretched, horizontal position in cages of interwoven branches, erected on piles, on the shore behind 

 the village. Most of the cages are in a bad state, parts of the skeletons having fallen out 

 and scattered (by the hogs!). People allowed me to take away some bones. The inhabitants of 

 Tobâdi put their dead on the small island of Entjemâg, simply on the earth, because there are no 

 hogs. As far as I could ascertain no corpses are buried on the hills, as Van DER GOES 

 [1858, 182] thinks, taking for grave ornaments the ornamental pôles which hâve a religious 

 meaning (Chapter XII). At Asé in the stony soil a shallow pit is dug, into which the body 

 is deposited, whilst a heavy weight in stones and a fence of horizontal sago leaf stalks, inside 

 another of strong vertical branches, keep off the hogs. The spade (fig. 166) or spades (fig. 165) with 

 which the grave has been dug, also are placed in the fence, also sometimes the bow of the 

 deceased (fig. 166). Thèse graves are called : fâre, the same name which was given to the 

 small pig-sty, which was intended for the sow with her young ones. In the western villages 

 like Pujo (fig. 164) the fence is quite close and covered with a roof of palmleaves, small houses 

 being thus the resuit, which are sometimes beautifully ornamented, and against which hand- 

 some fishing spears are placed. The same thing happened at Sâgeisârâ (fig. 167) near a tomb 

 budè jâ, erected in the immédiate vicinity of the temple; hère a dog on the back of a 

 Varanusf?) and a sawfish, and other, smaller fish figures made of wood, beautifully carved, 



