DISPOSAL OF A CORPSE. 399 
were performed and prayers offered, according to 
the cause of the death that had taken place ; and 
when these were concluded, the priest, informing 
the family that he had been successful, 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, and those of the middle class, were pre¬ 
served ; the bodies of the lower orders uncere¬ 
moniously buried, which was called the burial of 
a dog : when interred, the body was not laid out 
straight or horizontal, but placed in a sitting pos¬ 
ture, 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 deep'y 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 
such, as to require that it should be speedily 
removed, unless methods were employed for its 
preservation, and these were generally too expen¬ 
sive for the poor and middle ranks. They were 
therefore usually obliged to inter the corpse some¬ 
times 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 on a sort of bier covered with the best white 
native cloth they possessed, and decorated with 
