302 



INDIAN AND OTHER 



entertained for her defun6l spouse, and of the grief she felt at 

 his loss. On the day which is named quitaluto (quit- weeds), 

 the widow is carried in a sedan chair from her dwelling to the 

 brotherhood. She enters weeping ; and if she does not display 

 a sufficient address, in a6ling the part of a mourner, she ex- 

 poses herself to the risk of receiving a few stripes, as a punish- 

 ment for her insensibility. Immediately after her arrival, a 

 lamb is immolated on one of the seats of earth within the 

 quarters : this sacrifice is offered up to the manes of the de- 

 ceased, to whose memory the bride is about to bid adieu for 

 ever. She presents, on a silver salver, the shoes which during 

 her widowhood had become old and crazy. These ceremo- 

 nies being concluded, the preliminaries of the civil a<9: of ma- 

 trimony are performed ; and all the brethren display their 

 earnestness to treat the newly married couple with liquors and 

 viands of every description. 



When it happens that a widower weds a second time, not 

 any of these formalities are observed. The negroes say, that 

 it is derogatory in a man to manifest his grief for the death of 

 a woman, when for the one that is lost a hundred are to be 

 found. If in any particular it is apparent that these wretched 

 Africans are barbarians, it is in the adoption of this iniquitous 

 maxim. Sensible and just men do not think in this manner. 

 Among us, there are those who are persuaded that the long life 

 of an antediluvian patriarch would not suffice to deplore the 

 loss of a good wife. 



The other, assemblages which the negroes are in the habit of 

 forming, are less interesting, either on account of their simi- 

 larity to those that have been already described, or because 



they 



