354 
MOURNING FOR THE DEAD. 
by cutting and burning the hair close off* to the 
head and plastering themselves with pipe-clay. In 
some cases, hot ashes are put upon the head to 
singe the hair to its very roots, and they then lite- 
rally weep “ in dust and ashes.” Among some of 
the Murray tribes, a mourning cap is worn by the 
women, made two or three inches thick of carbo- 
nate of lime. It is moulded to the head when 
moist around a piece of net work ; the weight is 
eight pounds and a half. (PI. 1, fig. 17.) 
The lamentations for the dead do not terminate 
with the burial ; frequently they are renewed at in- 
tervals by the women, during late hours of the night, 
or some hours before day-break in the morning. 
Piercingly as those cries strike upon the traveller in 
the lonely woods, if raised suddenly, or very near 
him, yet mellowed by distance they are soothing 
and pleasing, awakening a train of thoughts and 
feelings, which, though sad and solemn, are yet such 
as the mind sometimes delights to indulge in. The 
names of the dead are never repeated by the natives 
among themselves, and it is a very difficult matter 
for a European to get them to break through this 
custom, nor will they do it in the presence of other 
natives. In cases where the name of a native has 
been that of some bird or animal of almost daily re- 
currence, a new name is given to the object, and 
adopted in the language of the tribe. Thus at 
* The women among the American Indians also cut off the 
hair close to the head as a sign of mourning. — Vide Catlin, vol. i. 
p. 95. 
