DEATH AND BURIAL. 



25 



refuse a single shukkah to his wife, and the wife suc- 

 ceeding to an inheritance will abandon her husband to 

 starvation. The man takes charge of the cattle, goats, 

 sheep, and poultry ; the woman has power over the 

 grain and the vegetables ; and each must grow tobacco, 

 having little hope of borrowing from the other. Widows 

 left with houses, cattle, and fields, usually spend their 

 substance in supporting lovers, who are expected occa- 

 sionally to make presents in return. Hence no coast 

 slave in Wanyamwezi is ever known to keep a shukkah 

 of cloth. 



The usual way of disposing of a corpse in former times 

 was, to carry it out on the head and to throw it into 

 some jungle strip where the fisi or cyn hyaena abounds, — 

 a custom which accounts for the absence of graveyards. 

 The Wanyamwezi at first objected to the Arabs pub- 

 licly burying their dead in their fields, for fear of pol- 

 lution ; they would assemble in crowds to close the 

 way against a funeral party. The merchants, however, 

 persevered till they succeeded in establishing a right. 

 When a Mnyamwezi dies in a strange country, and his 

 comrades take the trouble to inter him, they turn the 

 face of the corpse towards the mother's village, a pro- 

 ceeding which shows more sentiment than might be 

 expected from them. The body is buried standing, or 

 tightly bound in a heap, or placed in a sitting position 

 with the arms clasping the knees : if the deceased be a 

 great man, a sheep and a bullock are slaughtered for a 

 funeral feast, the skin is placed over his face, and the 

 hide is bound to his back. When a sultan dies in a 

 foreign land his body is buried upon the spot, and his 

 head, or what remains of it, is carried back for sepul- 

 ture to his own country. The chiefs of Unyamwezi 

 generally are interred by a large assemblage of their 



