POLYNKSIAN RESEARCHES. 519 
cessful^ and that the remaining members were now safe, 
received another fee, and departed. 
The disposal of the corpse was the next concern. The 
bodies of the chiefs, and persons of rank and affluence, 
were preserved; those of the middle and lower orders 
buried: when interred, the body’ was not laid out 
straight or horizontal, but placed in a sitting posture, 
with the knees elevated, the face pressed down between 
the knees, the hands fastened under the legs, and the 
whole body tied with cord or cinet wound repeatedly 
round. It was then covered over, and deposited not very 
deeply in the earth. 
However great the attachment between the deceased 
and the survivors might have been, and however they 
might desire to prolong the melancholy satisfaction 
resulting from^ the presence of the lifeless body^ on 
which they still felt it some alleviation to gaze, the 
heat of the climate was sueh^ as to require thatTt should 
be speedily removed, unless methods were employed for 
its preservation, and these were generally too expensive 
for the poor-and middle ranks. They were therefore 
usually obliged to inter the corpse sometimes on the 
first, and seldom later than the second day after death. 
During the short period that they could indulge the 
painful sympathies connected with the retention of the 
body, it was placed in a sort of bier covered with the 
best white native cloth they possessed, and decorated 
with wreaths and garlands of the most odoriferous 
flowers. The body was also placed on a kind of bed of 
green fragrant leaves, which were also strewed over the 
floor of the dwelling. During the period which elapsed 
between the death and interment of the body, the rela¬ 
tives and surviving friends sat round the corpse, indulg- 
