Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/364

 346 The clay from the grave was carefully heaped up on the western side into a slightly curved crescentic shape, not unlike the outline of a body lying in a recumbent position on the right side,—a form, I suspect, which it is intended rudely to resemble, for at one extremity the earth was moulded into a round form, connected with the rest of the mound by a small junction, which they said was to represent the head and neck. Their next care was to fold or double the legs so that the heels should touch the back part of the thigh. This was a matter of some difficulty, for the corpse had stiffened; but they succeeded. Then they cut off his hair and beard short, and singed it smooth. Then, by the application of fire, they stripped the nail from the little finger of his right hand, and tied that finger and the thumb together. The woman rubbed his forehead with a white earth, and bestowed a profusion of kisses upon the face. In the meantime others lighted some brushwood and burned it in the grave, a process which seemed to interest them very much, as they crowded and peeped into the grave with great curiosity, as if either looking for some appearance, or drawing some omen from it, but all seemed carefully to stand out of the way of the smoke from the grave. A frog seemed disturbed from its rest by the fire, and hopped about the grave. They mentioned it seriously to one another, but I could not understand whether any importance was attached to the circumstance. Then one took a bough, and brushed out the ashes, and scattered them to the wind. All that were in that direction appeared to hurry away as if afraid of the ashes and the smoke. Then they placed the body carefully in the grave on its right side with the head to the South, the face directed to the East, in which they seemed to be particular. When I remarked this, they said that the people to whom the deceased belonged always buried the bodies North and South, the face looking to the sunrise, but that others buried the bodies East and West, with the face looking to the midday sun. During the preparation of the body there arose a