ETHNOLOGICAL NOTES. 
189 
bouse or bathe on any account whatsoever, but after the 
feast, which is held on the fourteenth day, he may go out 
of the house by a ladder, which is specially made for this 
purpose. The ladder is then destroyed, and he returns to 
the house by the public way. Nobody else may use the 
special ladder.” During the rest of the mourning, he may 
go to work, &c., but may not sleep in another house. 
The mourner is always dressed in white during the forty 
days. It is only the very rich people and those of great 
importance in the land who may use black for mourning. 
At the time of death, guns are fired and gongs beaten; 
this occurs at stated intervals throughout the day. The 
corpse is buried the day after death, with the cannon ( hedil) 
and gongs on which it has rested. 
The body is put into a box of hard wood ( bilian ), which 
has a pointed roof on the lid, and under the roof are put 
the hedils , &c., gold, silver, and money. This property is 
all buried and may not be exhumed. The coffin has a post 
at each corner which holds it together and prevents the 
roof from slipping off. Any other relations dying afterwards 
are buried in the same coffin, which is opened for that 
purpose. As many as twenty people are buried in one coffin. 
Another custom is that the corpse is put into a coffin of 
soft wood ( plai ), which is kept in the house, against the 
wall, covered up with gongs, and resting on bedils, After 
one year the coffin is opened and the bones transferred to 
another coffin of hard wood (bilian), which is then buried. 
They also hold a big feast for this ceremony which is known 
as “ Mentulang.” A death is the signal for a great feast, 
at which much “ Pengasi ” (native spirit made of rice, 
paddi, sugar-cane, and wood-ash) is drunk, and many 
buffaloes killed. This feast lasts for two or three days. 
Another is held after fourteen days, and another and final 
one after forty days. 
“Pasang Salang.” 
After the corpse has been disposed of, a big flare is lighted 
in the living-room (bilek) that night. The fire is made of 
“ Upeh Pinang ” (the outer cover of the skin which protects 
the young betel-nut) which contains powdered Damar, and 
is about a foot and a half long. This “ candle ” is called 
“ Salang.” The salang is placed erect on a pile of bedils 
and gongs, and is lighted at sundown and extinguished at 
dawn every day during the forty days. The people take it 
in turns to watch this fire, so as to save accidents. If, 
