or two of green leaves thrust in above them, the cloths replaced, and the
body again bound up ready for interment.

[Note 81: Also an American custom.--Catlin, vol. i. p. 90. Lacerating the
flesh at death was expressly forbidden in the Jewish dispensation. It is
practised also in New Zealand.--Vide Dieffenbach.]

A relative of the deceased now jumped up, with his weapons, violently
excited, and apparently with the intention of spearing some one; but he
was at once restrained by his friends, who informed me that the
investigation had satisfied them that the man had not died through the
agency of sorcery; if he had, it is imagined that a cicatrice would have
been found upon the omentum. Two men now got into the grave, spread a
cloth in the bottom, and over that green boughs. Other natives turned the
bier round, and lifting up the body, gave it to the two in the grave to
lay in its proper position, which was quite horizontal, and with the head
to the west [Note 82 at end of para.], the grave being dug east and west:
green boughs were now thrown thickly into it, and earth was pushed in by
the bystanders with their feet, until a mound had been raised some height
above the ground. All was now over, and the natives began to disperse,
upon which the wild and piercing wail of the mourners became redoubled.

[Note 82: This appears to be a very general custom, and to be of Eastern
origin. Catlin describes it as always being attended to at the disposal
of the dead by the American Indians. In South Africa, however, Moffat
states (p. 307), "that the corpse is put exactly facing the north."]

Upon the mounds, or tumuli, over the graves, huts of bark, or boughs, are
generally erected to shelter the dead from the rain; they are also
frequently wound round with netting. Many graves being usually in one