NOTICES OF BOOKS. 153 
broken to prevent theft: at the grave of a woman her cook- 
ing utensils, grass petticoats, &c., are slonly suspended. 
This is the datya of the Dayaks & Borneo* and agrees, as 
Mr. Git points ont, with eae which prevail generally 
among the Polynesians. At a funeral which he witnessed, the 
widow sat at the head of the grave besmeared with ashes. A 
lament was sung by the assemblage to the accompaniment of 
drums which each man carried. Lhe women scratched each 
others’ faces and bosoms until they bled freely: “then the 
hair of the dead was plucked and shaved off as charms; in- 
describable phallic scenes followed’ It is the custom for 
relatives to watch by the graves of their deceased friends, and 
small huts are erected over or near the graves, in which they 
sleep at night. 
Of a tribe of mountaineers whom he visited, Mr. CHanmers 
says: “the natives very seldom bury their dead, leaving the 
body in a house set apart for it, which they often visit. When 
a number of deaths take place, they leave the village and set- 
tle somewhere else not far off: There is one grave here, near 
to our house, on which a tobacco plant is growing, a bamboo 
pipe, the property of the deceased, alongside a few sticks on 
end with yams on top. When they do bury, the body is placec 
standing in the grave.’” A most crueland unnatural custom, said 
to prevail in the district of Aroma, is that of burying alive decre- 
pit parents andgrandparents. A native teacher saw a man dig : 
grave for his aged grandmother. With his own strong arms 
he deposited her in it, despite her tears and feeble resistance. 
When remonstrated with, he ee “She cannot live. She is 
already as good as dead.” He then filled up the grave and 
trod the earth down upon the living victim and went home. 
Taro, sago, cocoa-nuts, betel-nuts, yams, plantains, and sugar- 
cane are produced abundantly. Sago is cooked with shell 
fish, boiled with bananas, roasted on stones, baked in the ashes, 
fed up in leaves, &c., eee Pork and the meat of the wallaby 
are much valued as food by the natives, and iguanas are also 
eaten. ‘lhe indigenous breed of fowls is inferior. C 
Cucumbers 
are cultivated. A small oyster, described as ‘‘ capital eating ” 
. 
* See-No. 14 of this Journal, p. 291 
