Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/853

Rh their howling, the corpse is dressed and set in funeral array; a fowl is slaughtered; the coffin is prepared, and the body crowded side wise into it. Half the clothes, money, rice, and usual necessities of life of the deceased, and the feet of the slaughtered hen, are placed in the coffin with the body, while the rest is consumed by the mourners. The grave is built up in the form of a stepped pyramid, the terraces of which are supported by planks, and over it is erected a canopy under which are deposited articles which the deceased has used. At seven and at forty-nine days after the burial, a second and a third fowl are slaughtered, and a part of them is carried ceremonially to the grave. The term of forty-nine days marks the period of mourning for an adult, while only seven days are given to a child; and during this time the family must refrain from eating rice and satisfy themselves with a less desirable and much less palatable kind of grain. With the observance of this season all the duties toward the Sead are fulfilled till the time of the djamä, or the feast in commemoration of the entrance of the soul into the spirit-world. This festival is celebrated every two or three years, and all the families in the village that have lost a member during the interval join in defraying the expense of it. An invitation to the djamä is one of those things that are not declined. The festival lasts through seven days, to each of which is assigned some feature in the preparation for the ceremonial of cremation. A crematory is built, to which the dead are brought, amid the howlings of the mourning-women. A brief formula is recited by the wadian, or priest, over each body, as it is brought up, and it is then lifted upon the hearth. After the burning the ashes are placed without any further ceremony in a vessel called an agong, and this is deposited in the tambak, or family sepulchre, a structure which is erected upon posts a short distance above the ground. Children under seven years of age are not cremated, but their bodies are placed at once in the tambak. They must be purified, however, before they can enter the heavenly city, and this is done by sacrificing a hog on the day following that of their death. Seven days after the djamä, the siwah a feast of propitiation, is given, when priestly ceremonies are performed, with eating, drinking, and sports. The viands which are eaten at these feasts must not be allowed to touch the ground, and are therefore brought to the feasting-place on wooden stands from one to two feet high. The really important act of the siwah is the manrus-ira or blood-bath, a ceremonial that might well excite horror. Four fowls, four goats, and four swine, are slaughtered on a latticed platform, and their blood is allowed to drip down upon the ground below. The multitude rush to the spot to bathe in the blood; women with nursing infants, children of every age and both sexes, decrepit old men and vigorous young men, besmear their faces, their heads, their breasts, and in fact their whole bodies, with the warm streaming blood of the slaughtered animals, which are then cooked and eaten.