274 
TRAVELS IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 
the corpse was suspended, as before described. Tt was, he said, to 
enable the dead man to communicate with his children. Also, 
after much cross- questioning through the medium of an interpreter, 
I found this tribe had neither a belief in the existence of God, nor 
in punishment or reward after death ; neither was any kind of 
religious worship or ceremony, in any form whatever, practised by 
them. 
The customs of some of the tribes south of this with regard to 
the treatment of their dead are so remarkable that I cannot for- 
bear citing them. Although not verified by myself, the circum- 
stances may be received as reliable, the informants being my own 
men, who for the last three years have been in the habit of travers- 
ing twice a year the districts inhabited by the people in question ; 
besides, a young Neam Neam, consigned to Mussaad on his last 
journey in these parts, for the purpose of learning the Arabic lan- 
guage, and now with, us, corroborates the statement in connection 
with a tribe in friendly relations with his. 
Three days^ journey only south of this, adjoining Mundo, on 
the death of an individual they extract the intestines, heart, and 
lungs, and they are declared to be feasted on by the women only. 
Rolled up in a mat in a sitting posture, the mutilated corpse is 
placed on a wooden framework some three feet from the ground 
in the centre of the hut. A constant fire of green wood in the 
first instance, to create as much smoke as possible, is placed under- 
neath, and not until the obnoxious odours have ceased, and the 
body parched into a mummy by the joint effects of heat and smoke, 
is dry wood substituted. The hut does not cease to be inhabited 
by the family, aud the deceased is not interred until twelve months 
after death. His land is cultivated as heretofore by the remaining 
members of the family, or, if unable, by friends ; but the whole of 
